Radical chic or iconoclast cool; whatever you call the attitude, organizers of this Summer’s Edgefest ’97 concert tour are counting on it to sell ad space in their first-ever souvenir program guide.

Toronto’s Chart magazine, in conjunction with Universal Concerts Canada, is developing the program guide for advertisers who want to reach Canada’s 16- to 29-year-old ‘alternative’ rock fans. What used to be the avant garde sub-strata of the bigger rock/pop audience has moved decidedly into the mainstream, and the guide’s developers are claiming a potential audience of 175,000 as the Edgefest tour ­ for the first time in its seven-year history ­ visits eight cities across the country.

‘The idea is to create additional value for the people who are attending the concert,’ says Bill Jones of Edgefest organizer Universal Concerts. ‘We wanted them to have a keepsake that would commemorate the first year of the tour going national.’

Jones is targeting about 50 per cent penetration of the Edgefest audience with a print run of 67,000 copies. They will be given away to ‘eager fans’ at each concert site. Negotiations are also underway to partner with a national music retailer and sell merchandise at each concert site.

So what will alt-rock fans think about all of this ‘crass’ commercialization?

‘Cool is still very important,’ says David Ackerman, sales development manager for Chart magazine. ‘There are a lot of advertisers we won’t take, and it’s going to be presented that way in the style and the design. We’ll lose people if we do anything that blows that idea up.’