Finally out of its beta, banking alternative Simple is starting its more broader marketing push. First stop: techie hipsters.

Last night, Simple made its New York debut with a sponsorship of and demo at Engadget’s Soho Live event. The event, which drew a wide range of techies sampling the newest consumer electronics offerings from Sony, Slingbox and Monster (which makes cool headphones), among others. Yes, there were people walking around wearing pairs of Google Glass.

Tweets from the event carried the hashtag #engdgtNYC

The Simple demo (delayed at least 15 minutes because of technical problems) took place in a sleek loft area down the block from a Marc Jacobs boutique. The demo-er, whose name I didn’t catch, ran through the app in around 15 minutes. What was interesting were the questions she got — they touched on the following topics:

• Security;
• Fees;
• External account access; and
• The need for an invitation to get the Simple service.

This last point stuck with me. The demo-er said there are 30,000 people still on Simple’s wait list. She said Simple, although it was “no longer in beta,” was not taking everyone off the wait list until it was sure the Simple service could handle the load. Yet, she said that everyone at the Engadget event who came to the Simple booth would be “put at the front of the line” of the waiting list. Apparently, the wait list has morphed into something with marketing implications.

Simple was the only company at last night’s event that was not either a consumer electronics compan  or a manufacturer, like Steelcase. Obviously, Simple needs to go mass, and it has chosen to target the segment most likely to be nauseated by the technology offered by mainstream banking: tech enthusiasts. At the least, it’s a start on the road to mass market acceptance.