"Next, start booking & playing all the old band
gigs & venues as a solo..."

I've already been slowly transitioning most of the band accounts to OMB or sometimes duos.

Example: An Eagles an hour away from us used to have the band every month, for about six years steady. Crowds were HUGE here...upwards of 400+ people nightly. From this account, two other clubs saw us and booked the band there as well. Well, a year ago, the Eagles came to us and said they weren't making enough money. (Our crowds aren't big drinkers...) and asked us if we could drop our price by $100 if they knocked it down to a 3 instead of a 4 hour gig. I was ok with that...as was my sax guy. The bass guy and drummer said no...I cautioned them that once the other clients we had in this audience heard my duo, they might drop using the band at those higher paying gigs. They still said no.

Guess what? The two other clients couldn't believe how good the duo was, dropped the band right away and gave all the gigs to the duo. So, in about 90 days time, the band lost 24 annual bookings which became duos. (Which meant a hefty increase in pay for yours truly.)

So when these same two guys who walked away, now bitch about fewer and fewer gigs...I ask them what did they think was goin to happen? They looked at my OMB as a nice novelty act and didn't ever dream it could replace them.

Sometimes guys just aren't thinking...

Bill