Is it unreasonable to expect students to read the lecture notes before attending the first class? The new semester will be starting in a few weeks,
and I will be teaching a course which starts on the first day of the semester.

The goal of the course is to teach students
how to use the R programming language to clean and analyze data.
I will teach the course using a flipped classroom format:


To save time (both my own time and students' time),
I will record video lectures and write lecture notes,
which I expect the students to watch or read before each class.
It should take the students about 1–2 hours to watch/read before class.
The class meets 1 time per week, for 3 hours at a time.
During the class time each week,
students will be in the computer lab,
where they will complete data analysis tasks on the computer.
During the class time in the lab,
students can ask me to clarify any questions they may have.


Question:
From the second class onward,
I will be expecting students
to watch the lecture videos and read the lecture notes before coming to class.
However, is it a good idea to have the same arrangement for the first class?
In other words, is it unreasonable to ask and expect students
to read the lecture notes for the first class
before coming to the first class?
My plan is to post the lecture notes online,
and to notify students that they should read the lecture notes
by making an announcement using the course LMS system.
(In my university,
students are automatically signed up to the course learning management system
when they register for the course.)

Some clarifications:


What types of students will be taking the course?

The course is a course for undergraduate students,
with most of the students are in their 2nd or 3rd year of study.
Is the course listed as a lab or as a lecture course?

The course is listed as a lecture course.
I am teaching in the business school,
where lab courses are extremely uncommon.
I believe that courses which are taught as lab courses,
say by teaching them in a computer lab,
are still listed officially as lecture courses.
Will I be giving the students too much work?

In my university, courses meet once a week, for 3 hours at a time.
My plan is to give students either some notes to read and/or videos to watch,
which they should do before class each week.
This should take about 1-2 hours of time each week,
which seems to me to be quite reasonable.
Students in my university take 5 courses a semester on average,
which is 15 hours of class time each week.
In my opinion,  yes it is unreasonable.

Disclaimer: I am a student in the Netherlands, different universities and countries might work differently.

In all the courses I've followed I can't remember a single one that expected me to prepare for the first class. Usually the first half of the first lecture of a course is dedicated to explaining how the course works, what is expected of you, and anything else related to organization. Most students, including myself, usually don't even register in the online environment where the teaching material is posted before the first lecture.

You could argue that maybe this shouldn't be the case, and that students should be more diligent. And naturally, it is up to you whether you want to take this view and potentially punish students who didn't prepare. Practically though, most students are probably just going to miss it, or skip it. 

If you do decide to have students prepare for the first lecture, make sure to clearly note this in the course guide/emails/online announcements. And also note the potential consequences for students who do not prepare.