The IAOC moved towards posting basic -- such as city and I believe main
hotel -- much earlier than when registration is opened.
It sounds as if adding the visa-related information to the earliest
announcement of venue details would make sense.
As I understand it, people need to be able to register and get a
letter of invitation to send in with their visa application. The
LOI is already completely automated, so this still feels like a
fairly minor software tweak to allow it to happen earlier.
R's,
John