An Idea
(was not sure where to put this, just a random idea i had from last year)
I noticed something that seemed to happen to me at Anthrocon last year and so I am sure it happened to at least someone else as well. More than once I would walk by con-ops and poke my head and ask if any volunteers where needed, most of the time it was a yes or a no, not really a problem. I also noticed once I asked, was told no, walked out the door only to be asked by someone I was volunteering with the night before if I was going to volunteer now, I asked the nice person in con-ops if they needed anyone ‘now’ and sure enough five minutes after I asked they did need volunteers for registration. So that got me thinking it would be nice if there was some way to contact people who want to volunteer and tell them that they where needed. At first I was thinking of SMS messages threw Google voice but I realized how hard that would be, so my second idea is that volunteering gets it own twitter feed and people who are interested would be able to follow that and get updates to the effect of ‘volunteers needed at con-ops to help with….’ Also twitter lets you choose to receive updates via SMS so they could be sent out to a large group of people, right to there phones.
{insert comment about great minds here}
that would raise a problem for some people.... for people that come from another country, a simple text message could cost easly a dollar.
altough i like the idea, perhaps a comination of stuff, mail, forums, but for last minute arangements that would be too slow :s
perhaps a stand by team, volunteers who are standby, they walk around the con, and if its needed, they can be called via intercom/portophones/marinophones/or whatever you call that stuff.
im shure some people will do stand by team.
You can pick up a disposable cellphone here in the states for about $20 at most convenience stores. They even support text messages.
(It's how I ran the Anthrocon Ops Hotline, actually. I got 3 cellphones for $20 each and forwarded calls to them)
Definitely something to look into; i'm glas giza is looking into that.
As an additional option, i found that it worked well for me to go to one of the staffers (preferably an asistant director) when i was finishing a shift, tell them i'm slipping away now, and ask nicely if there's a time when they might want me back. They don't always, but sometimes the staff have an idea about when they're expecting to get swamped again. In those cases, we're happy to know that trained volunteers are planning to return.
It's also a nice way to let the staff know you enjoyed working with them, though it also increases your risk of catching a staff infection. 
I did tell staff when i was leaving to get them to sign that slip, but i did not even think about asking when/if i would be needed again, good idea 
i think giza is frm the future, he does his job so fast, he is faster than most people ive seen in fixing problems, wait a minute, hes a chetah, thats why he is so fast
leopard *cough cough*
ehhhh, i cant get my cats right,
heres a thought bout the weston elevators, since there a 6 of them, during heavy traffic time, how bout using the 3 elevators on 1 side to be used by the fursuiters and the other side for the regular people instead of trying to mix and match
The problem is that the fursuiters need priority to the elevators because they are overheating and may be close to collapse.
The system the Dorsai currently enforce isn't perfect. It just that it's the best that we've been able to come up with so far. Trying to 'assign' an elevator or set of elevators to one group or another has been found to simply not work.
For several reasons, this isn't a workable idea. Not the least of which it is very hard to dedicate elevators. It requires taking it out of service, running it on manual and putting an operator in it to ride up and down to enforce the restrictions and that's no fun to anyone. Also, honestly, there just isn't enough need. Even at the most peak times, a fursuiter arriving at the lobby never has that long a wait.
Taking just one elevator out of the rotation increases the wait time in insane amount. So while dedicating just one elevator to fursuiters, who at the max suiting time only compose 20% of the attendees, might decrease their wait time a couple of minutes, it would easily add an hour to everyone elses wait and we'd have a riot on our hands if we did that.
Funny you should mention that. We are looking into solutions like the ones you mentioned.
Stay tuned for further updates.
Pennsylvania Furry? Be sure to check out http://www.pa-furry.org/