Chris Shipley

Too busy, some say, because of competing conferences at opposite ends of the state.

DEMOfall, the crown jewel of San Diego tech events, runs Sept. 7-9 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina.

TechCrunch50 is set for Sept. 8-10 in San Francisco. Coincidence? Hardly.

TechCrunch organizers make no secret of their desire to kill off DEMO for good.

Naturally, the calendar overlap has raised a bitter controversy involving early stage companies eager to parade their innovations in front of venture capitalists, fellow entrepreneurs and the media.

“By putting TC50 up against DEMO, TechCrunch has created a challenging dilemma for the best startups,” said Chris Shipley, executive organizer of DEMO, a 17-year-old conference franchise owned by International Data Group, or IDG, a Boston-based technology publisher.

The event has been a launching pad for such hits as TiVo and the Palm Pilot.
“TechCrunch set its sites on DEMO and has been lobbing missiles our way ever since,” Shipley said.

TC50 organizers Michael Arrington, publisher of TechCrunch.com, and serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis counter that DEMO exploits startups by charging an $18,500 entry fee and by viewing technology startups as little more than dollar signs.

TC50 touts a “merit-based” inclusion process in which entrants are screened and chosen on the basis of their ingenuity and make their presentations for free (not counting discounted admission), while attendees and sponsors such as Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. shoulder the financial burden.

The first TechCrunch conference, Tech­Crunch40, was held last year and hosted more than 900 attendees, according to event organizers.

Calacanis, who views himself as a friend and ally to startups everywhere, accuses DEMO of “spreading a horrible virus in the industry: conference payola. Their $18,500 fee for a six-minute (presentation) is so abusive it’s criminal.”

Even though TC50 doesn’t charge for presentations, fledgling companies that don’t make the cut can still set up their presentations on cocktail tables in the conference’s DemoPit exhibit area.