Trouble in conference land: TechCrunch50, DEMO happening at the same time

April 2, 2008 | Chris Morrison | Comments | |

tc040208.pngThe dates are out for the next TechCrunch conference, and surprise: TechCrunch50, in its second year, will be held on almost the exact same dates as venerable — or some might say vulnerable — tech-startup conference DEMO, which is about to enter its second decade.

DEMO had previously announced that it is being held from September 7th to the 9th. TechCrunch50 has scheduled for September 8th to the 10th.

demo040208.pngThis is an important story for the startup world, because both conferences do essentially the same thing: Launch new companies and bring accolades and attention (not to mention funding and users) to the best ones. Companies in both conferences are asked to remain in stealth mode until their day at the conference, when a press blitz is kicked off in an attempt to predict the winners.

Michael Arrington, the founder and editor of TechCrunch, claims that he’s not trying to create a schedule that conflicts with DEMO, telling me the decision was all about the venue, The San Francisco Design Center. “We really wanted this venue,” he said. “It was really hard to get any time slots in the fall, and this was what we could get.”

There is, of course, little love lost between Arrington and the DEMO organizers. Last year, the conferences were held only a week apart, which created an uneasy choice for entrepreneurs: Launch your company at TC40, or at DEMO? Two companies got kicked off the DEMO list after launching at TechCrunch40 — essentially forcing entrepreneurs to choose which conference they wanted to focus on.

“It baffles me, because ultimately it’s not very good for entrepreneurs,” said Chris Shipley, one of the organizers of DEMO, when I contacted her. “There’s a ton of room in the market for competitive events and supporting entrepreneurs. It doesn’t make sense how this will help them.”

Its worth pointing out that DEMO brought its conference two weeks forward this year, while Techcrunch brought its conference one week forward. Neither one wants to be pre-empted, so now it’s an even more conflicted choice for which conference startups should focus on. Maybe the two conferences could coordinate and let companies launch at both places at the same time?

TechCrunch started its conference just last year with TechCrunch40 in which, you guessed it, 40 startups presented over the course of several days.

Another conflict here is pricing. Demoing at DEMO is no cheap proposition, coming in at about $18,000. TechCrunch was free for presenting companies. Those companies that weren’t selected to be among the 40 instead had the option to pay half off the regular $2,000 entrance fee and then present in a part of the conference called the Demo Pit.

If it’s a choice of one or the other, the question is whether TechCrunch’s clout as a widely-read technology publication will help it to eat into DEMO’s revenue — or if DEMO itself will be able to compete based on its long-standing reputation as the place to go for interesting new companies.

Eric Eldon contributed to this article.

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About the Author, Chris Morrison

Chris Morrison writes about cleantech and environmental issues for VentureBeat, with occasional forays into gaming and semantic technology. He got his start writing about tech for Business 2.0 magazine, but quickly realized new media was the ticket when that institution closed its doors in 2007. Chris has also covered public equities and regulatory issues. He originally hails from southern Virginia, graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington, and now lives in San Francisco.

  • jason
    fyi: factual error above: there is no charge to present at TechCrunch50 (or techcrunch40 last year).

    It is 100% merit based.
  • Merit Based
    100% merit based? Not 100% in tight with Arrington based?
  • Thanks, Jason, we've fixed.
  • Kimba Hills
    What do the venture capitalist sponsors of the Techcrunch conference think of this? Can they afford to anger Chris Shipley? Good for grabbing headlines, but it puts customers and developers in an awkward position. They must know that.
  • Seems like a waste of time, either your startup starts or it doesn't, a conference won't increase your traffic. You might get a few hits to your page, big deal.
  • antivc
    anything that causes grief to VCs is good enough for me. these greedy yuppies and their sense of entitlement - the heck with that. i'm 4 square behind chis on this one
  • "Demo needs to die," Arrington said in the interview. "It's just an old-school model...It clearly involves pay to play, and what we're offering is better."

    It's not really that Demo needs to die, but what it does need to do is explain why it needs to charge $18,000 when Demo50 can do much the same for free.
    Demo's problem now is that it isn't a monopoly and should lose the monopoly pricing. A bold move would be for Demo to announce that the fees were waived. Then we would see a real head to head which would benefit everyone in the longer term.
  • Aaron Mann
    We were one of the companies faced with the "which conference" decision last year. From a company perspective the problem wasn't two conferences, it was that the Techcrunch40 selection process was weeks longer than the Demo selection process. It made for an interesting juggling act.

    This year, given current pricing, the selection is clear. Techcrunch50 has to be the choice unless as Ivan suggests above Demo radically alters it's game. The conferences sharing dates means press and investors can only be in one place. That is going to reduce press coverage for the startups significantly. Techcrunch50 will draw all the Bay Area VC's, leaving Demo the "out of towners".

    While it may be fun to watch this "battle of the startup conference" from the outside, the upshot is that this sucks for the startups at both conferences.
  • Anthony Ha
    As Ivan Pope notes above, Arrington has been a bit more open about his intentions elsewhere on the web. On Twitter, for instance, he explained: "We went after [DEMO] last year. Now, it's just them trying to be associated with us."
  • Hard to beat free and bloggable.