The "heavy hitters" in the room at "demo days" seem to be firm associates. Associates are mostly irrelevant to you. If you try just a little bit, you should be able to get meetings with firm partners. You probably don't have any traction with a firm until you've taken a 1-on-1 with a partner.

Maybe my VC knowledge is stale (it's from 2005) but a room full of VC associates seems pretty unattractive.