Unfortunately, I fear there are some cons that won't have that option, or will simply be too afraid too. Even if you are willing, you might not be able to find new volunteers, let alone in enough time. Most con volunteers are locals, after all.
That is the sad reality. Conventions are hard work, and something of a privilege, not a given right.
Sometimes you literally need to spend 5-10 years being a shitty, small convention and finding the right people to run things before you catch fire. The problem stems from people wanting to have a success in the immediate now.
That is the serious issue with conventions in the area here. The general populace are used to going to Anime North, FanExpo, Otakuthon, etc. They have expectations as they've volunteered at these cons too. So any small con that starts up here, gets a handful of entitled know-it-alls that come in and try to tell the ownership they know better because they volunteered at AN once.
The problem that creates, is that you have business owners who don't know any better and only want to make profit and take their stupid advice, and end up folding after year 1 or 2.
What has made one convention particularly successful, is having nearly 10 years of event experience in the region, knowing what works and what doesn't and finding the people that are passionate about making something. Yeah, it can take a while, but sometimes you can strike oil and find a keeper early on. It's like a sports analogy, that you need to cultivate your farm team through the draft, you can't just plug your holes through trades because that gets very expensive at the cost of your future.
It was a painful lesson we learned, albeit we had much tinier events when we had those growing pains. That experience is paying off now, that after a very long time of trying to find people, we're starting to find the
right people.
Nobody should
ever get into conventions to make money. Get into it for the fun, and passion of it because expecting money will lead to disappointment unless you're very patient.