I agree that there should be some benefit to pre-registering. In fact, most of the professional conferences I go to provide for exactly that in the form of a lower pre-registration fee. The premium paid for not-preregistering could go to the building fund. That would be a lot more acceptable and provide for those of us that are new and don't know the ropes. If I hadn't already paid for the travel, I would be inclined to just wait until next year.