I know there has been talk off and on of how great waiting lists would be to help the no-show issue, but I understand the logistics of that will take some time and testing. For a temporary and imperfect stopgap, what if there were an official hashtag to help attendees find open chairs?

For example, I could tweet,

"RPG 654321 Dungeon Murder Spree has one open seat! We're in Lucas Oil. #GenConPickUpGames"

"WKS 123456 Featherweight Armor has two open spaces! Find us in Embassy Room X. #GenConPickUpGames"

Okay, I made up that tag totally as I was typing and someone else may do better :) but if there were a publicized tag, attendees could keep an eye out for open seats and EOs could fill some of the dreaded no-show spaces.

Thoughts? Or has this been considered and discarded already?

Not a bad idea, but at the start of each 2-hour block, there could be hundreds of these going out, would take some digging through to find ones that you might want.  Still, would help fill spaces, so something to consider.

No-shows are a real problem, but they're not easy to solve due to the time issue.  You need to give people at least 10 minutes to show up.  Then, you somehow notify people that there are spaces available.  If you're lucky, people are in the area, but they could be a 5-10 minute walk away (more for the outlying venues).  So, now, the people that actually have paid for the event and are on time are waiting 20+ minutes for the event to start.

What would be cool is an app that somehow managed this, including allowing people to notify the event host that they will be a no-show, so that they might fill the seats early.  It would have to be something created by, or at least pushed by Gen Con, so that people would use it.  Probably won't happen, at least not for this year, so for now, the Twitter proposal would be a decent plan.

I think I've seen the hashtag #genconPUG used before - but that wouldn't really be a pick-up game for a ticketed event? 

I've also seen people post on the Fans of GenCon Facebook page something like "We're starting a XXXXX RPG in JW Room X - come on by!" I've actually played a few games that way and it's really handy to see when things are starting up. 

The problem, as you just pointed out, is that there are multiple ways people announce open slots, and none are official, or even widely used.  To do this right, there needs to be a single, at least semi-official place for hosts & attendees to connect.

perhaps event organizers can create their own hashtag or account to follow. Put that in their events page stating that any no-shows will be posted to it. This way gamers don't have to wade through a ton of post and organizers can update in near real time.
 

If there was a way to select notification categories on the website and have a way for GM's to do push notifications for this purpose would that be feasible?

If you are looking for something to play around 1 pm or 7 pm, you can always swing by Nascrag in Lucas Oil.  We always have room.