Dear all,
Regarding mentioned, I have some suggestions on mitigation risks for the future what could be done.
1. Visa support should be an important component for hosting community. Thus, during the bidding process of new location of Wikimania (or other huge event), each proposal of location should be considered not only from the prospective of visa-friendly policy, but on preliminary negotiations between local chapter (community) and local authorities (MFA or whatever). Thus, if let's say community of New Zealand get some positive negotiation's result from MFA of NZ on participant's visa support, it should be considered as a plus for this bid.
2. After the bid was chosen, local team should provide to local authorities the list of all participants who will participate at event and make sure that central authorities will transfer the lists to embassies and this lists will make a sense when decision on visa is made by embassy. Maybe it is not the most interesting thing, but hosting communities should take care on ability of their guests to visit the country,
3. Analysis of history of visa applications of Wiki(m/p)edians. As I understand, we never did such analysis and it could be useful as for passed event, and for future events as well.
Regards,
Levon Azizian
Wikimedia Ukraine