Jim,
I actually have walked into a place, setup and was ready to play when someone walked in and asked what I was doing and who I was. The Corp. had cleaned house and there were no records of bookings nor people left who knew me. I am constantly sending out cards to over 150 places to keep my name in front of the ADs, whoever they are, and that has worked somewhat. I keep booked as much as I want to play these days - but it takes and effort. Then there are the places I played weekly for over a year and suddenly nothing! Find out later the residency count dropped and the Corp. took the AD's budget away. Go figure. Then there are the places that I have played that got sold and the accounts payable did not go with the sale and I am still bugging them about being paid. No- only about 2% of them pay on the spot - submit an invoice and wait 2-4 weeks. And no, in Texas they don't do contracts.

I could go on.

Deane