: Re: earlier registration, suggestion for the next IETFs > > >All agreed, but we currently pick locations based on geographic > >locality to participants - maybe picking them based on visa > >availability for participants might be more useful? > > I doubt that's going to be a productive route. For people who live in > the US, Canada, EU, Japan, Australia, and NZ, all those countries allow > citizens of all of the others to travel without a visa, requiring at > most an online un-visa (US and Australia.) Beyond that, the rules are > all over the place. The US has soms unfortunate rules (good luck if > you have a Cuban or Iranian passport) but even a normal visa often > takes months if the consulate in the visitor's country is backed up. > We might find a small country that has relaxed visa rules, but was more > expensive to get to, the overall number of people who came might well > be less. > > Opening the registration earlier seems like something that wouldn't be > very hard to do, and would be a boon to people who need visas. By way > of comparison, ICANN's next meeting is in February, and the > registration has been open for a couple of weeks. > > R's, > John > > PS: Wait until you see what the un-visa for Argentina involves. I also think that opening the registration earlier would be easier than thinking about changing location with less visa limitation such as countries like Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. Thanks, Best, Hosnieh