on December 4, 2006 The North American leg of the tour was announced on May 18, 2006, for approximately 60 shows to run from late July through early November. While the Chicks' 2003
Top of the World Tour also took place after the Bush controversy, most of the tickets had already been sold beforehand, and it was the top-grossing country tour of that year. Despite good sales figures for the new
Taking the Long Way album, however, initial ticket sales for the Accidents & Accusations Tour were far below expectations. Four dates in
Memphis,
Oklahoma City,
Fresno, and
Indianapolis were dropped from the tour schedule. In
Houston, tickets never went on sale, with the concert promoter noting that local radio stations "wouldn't even accept our advertising money." Arenas holding 15,000 capacity were only selling 5,000–6,000 seats, sometimes less. Industry observers thought the tour might have to be postponed or at least downsized to smaller venues, The North American leg began as scheduled on July 21, 2006 at
Joe Louis Arena in
Detroit. The tour itinerary continued to suffer cancellations in the United States, while adding shows in Canada, where the new album and its singles were getting better radio airplay. An early leg show such as the July 25 one in
Philadelphia's
Wachovia Center, where sales had been reported as strong, still featured ten upper level sections empty and covered with black tarps. However, a show of hands taken by Maines indicated that a third or more of the fans were attending their first Chicks concert, which boded well for the group building a new audience. Continuing the ups and downs of the tour, the August 2 show at
Jones Beach Theatre in
Wantagh, New York was postponed due to extreme heat and humidity from the
2006 North American heat wave. On August 4, a revised tour schedule was finally announced. From the original May schedule, 14 shows had now been cancelled due to poor sales, including dates in
Kansas City,
Houston,
St. Louis,
Knoxville,
Des Moines,
Glendale, Arizona, and
Sunrise, Florida in addition to those previously mentioned. Several other late summer/early fall dates had been pushed back into later in the fall, including ones in
Nashville, Los Angeles,
Denver, and
Phoenix. Compared to the original schedule, the total number of North American shows was still roughly the same, due to the addition of a large number of shows in Canada (where
Taking the Long Way had proved extremely popular, going five-times-
platinum); 15 of the 41 North American shows were now scheduled for north of the border, a strikingly high proportion for an American act. (
Mariah Carey's concurrent
The Adventures of Mimi Tour had also increased its Canadian dates, although not to this extent; her management said the Canadian market was hot and favorable exchange rates made playing there attractive.) Dates were also announced for Australia, where
Taking the Long Way had been number one on the country albums for the three months since its release. The rescheduling also supposedly helped make room for promotion of the September 2006 documentary film
Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, which, when released, contained a few behind-the-scenes and on-stage scenes from the beginning of the tour. During interviews for that film, Maines said in reference to the tour, "We’ve basically been playing to about half the audience as on the last tour, but it's a different audience. They just look good ... In the past, I think we always thought, Oh, we have a purpose to entertain them and they were there to absorb that and soak it up and be entertaining. They bought their ticket. Now you feel like they feel they have a purpose, supporting free speech and supporting us."
Blogger The Dixie Chicks became the first major band to hire a designated blogger "all-access" to keep up with them in their promotional activities and tour. They partnered with
Microsoft Having to give Semitsu a title, the band finally decided on Management Assistant, to allow him all-access entry on tour and at home. Slowly, this was laughingly shortened to "Man. Ass.", with Semitsu finding at least as much humor as the Chicks. ==The show==