I had the exact same issue.  
I noticed that every web service has a URL property, so all you need to
do is instantiate the web service, set the URL from a setting in your
app.config file (or the registry if you wanted to) and away you go.
This way clients can change the app.config to point to a different URL
that hosts the same web service if one of your servers go down.

Here is the code from my app...>

' instantiate a copy of my web service
Dim w As New HcsServices.main

Try
' set the url from my app.config file
 w.Url = _
system.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings.Item("WebServices
")

            ' call my web service method
            IP = w.GetIPAddress

         ' error handler
        Catch ex As Exception

            ' if it didnt work pass some useful information to the error
log
            Dim strErr As String = "Web Service Error in
frmSettings.btnGetIP_Click URL:" & w.Url
            WriteToLog.Invoke(strErr & ControlChars.CrLf & ex.ToString,
EventLogEntryType.Error)

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