Last week Sophie and I went to Paris for the Le Web event. Whereas ETRE probably has the best networking and is over-the-top elegant, and DEMO Germany is a must for anyone wanting to enter the German market, Le Web is easily the coolest tech event that I’ve ever attended (Essential Web is probably second).

By cool, I mean that it felt like I was at a cool, exclusive party — kind of like when my friends and I snuck into Puff Daddy’s VIP Party when the MTV Awards came to Barcelona. But that’s another story . . .

At ETRE, the guests are important but not really focused on being cool. It’s more like being invited to a world summit where you can actually meet and interact with world leaders. At DEMO, you have all of the German VCs available to you. At Le Web, the speakers and other guests are cool, public figures but probably not the main attraction. Some of them gave 20-minute extracts of what should really be much larger discussions. In fact, in a world where almost everyone has a blog and has posted his or her best presentations on YouTube, you usually don’t learn anything new at large conferences geared to general-interest audiences full of non-entrepreneurs. If you want to participate in longer, more substantive conversations with entire micro-communities of commentators, analysts and entrepreneurs, go read your favorite entrepreneur or VC’s blog or become one of her “friends” on Facebook or search for her presentations on YouTube. There are a lot of options that are cheaper than paying the hefty entrance fees and travel expenses to go to a conference.

But if you do go to a conference, it’s nice to feel welcomed, as if you are a VIP guest. And that’s what Le Web excels at. It’s clear that they spent lots of time designed to make the event feel special and singular — making it comfortable and elegant, as opposed to just functional and boring.

A few highlights:

• The networking lounge was full of modern art work and live artists drawing while entrepreneurs networked on comfortable couches and/or watched the main conference on large plasma TVs.
• There was the Michelin-star type lunch, with chefs preparing foie, shrimp, fondues, raclettes and other great meals, and other waiters serving wine, cocktails or whatever beverage might capture your attention.
• Each guest was introduced with electronica / house music, which certainly woke me up at 9AM in the morning
• Loïc Le Meur graciously introduced himself to each guest at the party, smiling broadly and being a good host, even when Phillipe Starck spoke about 1 hour more than his allotted time.
• Kevin Rose had a very intimate and personal conversation with a Business Week journalist, who asked him about Digg’s groupies.
• Most of the presentators cursed and spoke in a lot more “vulgar” terms. It was surprising on the one hand, but it lent to the atmosphere that the audience was being allowed to hear open and honest conversations between influential Internet opinon-makers. No bullshitting. Just the real deal with lots of cursing.
• Most of the attendees were dressed stylishly and intelligently, as if we were all part of an exclusive Rive Gauche soiree.
• And, of course, there was the fact that so many people went. Bloggers. VCs. Tech analysts. Entrepreneurs. It seems that we all go to the same conferences, but people seemed a lot happier and cheerful at this one. Various blogs had speculated that there’d be 2000 people attending (clever, aggressive marketing). At the event, however, Loïc mentioned that 800 people would attend, and it seemed to me that there were fewer than that. A good showing, but fewer than 1000 people in the same room at the same time. And a lot of the tickets seem like they were comped — i.e., free for friends of friends of Loïc and certain bloggers.

That being said, it was definitely a very cool event. The coolest, most elegant tech event around by far.