Want To Watch Companies Present at Demo? That Will Be $250

It’s been interesting to watch the DEMO conference evolve since Techcrunch50 began. First there were the wars of words between the two conferences, then it got quiet, this year Techcrunch50 has been replaced by two individual conferences while DEMO continues on in the same format as before the Techcrunch50 conference began operations.

During the spring version of DEMO, I wrote a column that infomercial conferences (those where companies pay to present) should always be streamed live. In today’s search market, it’s critical that companies can gain the bonus exposure of a potential trending topic on the different social networks or on Google’s new realtime search. By posting the videos a day later, that buzz will have already evaporated.

It also makes it hard when people at the conference share how excited they are about one of the companies because those on the receiving end of the message, can’t easily jump into the presentation to watch for themselves.

This season DEMO has moved the event to San Francisco. Over 60 companies will present their products and services. It appears DEMO generates their revenue several ways:

• They charge each company that presents on stage $18,500
• They charge “alpha” companies that want to present their idea for 90 seconds a fee of $5,000
• Attendees pay $3,000 to attend
• They have a large list of sponsors (somewhere around 50)
• This season of DEMO, you can now watch the live stream for $299 ($250 if you register before the conference) for both days.

For reference, Techcrunch50 never charged companies a fee to present. Their revenue came from ticket sales and from corporate sponsors.

I received an email this afternoon from Fora.tv who are apparently handling the online ticketing and viewing for the DEMO conference. I can’t tell from the email whether you will be able to watch the company demos the next day as in the past or if you will be required to pay to watch the demos at all. It does appear that the panel discussions (those with the CEOs of companies including Twitter and Groupon) will only be available if you pay.

I will attempt to contact DEMO to further clarify how the live streaming will work although their contact page is not working currently.

My hope is that the DEMO organizers will read this post and reconsider charging a fee to watch the event live. Or at a minimum, allow the demos to be broadcast live and cut the video when the panel discussions are on stage. It’s one thing to charge a PPV fee to watch a wrestling event or a Katy Perry concert, it’s another thing to charge a substantial fee to watch a conference where the participants are paying for exposure.

Lastly, if you are one of the companies presenting, good luck, come out and kick major butt and remember to make sure your presentation is memorable.