Hi Shop Pepperment Team,
While there is currently no way to have an application automatically open up on a future date, you can create an application and leave it in draft mode once you have it set up. Then, on the date you would like it to go live, you can just change it to live mode and it will show up on your event page. As for notifying vendors, you can use the group messaging feature to notify any of the vendors who have applied in the past that your new application is now open.