He couldn't believe it. It was only a few minutes after 10, but TicketsNow was already selling hundreds of Springsteen tickets for three or eight times face value.
"I was really upset," Kandell says. "Is this some sort of fraud or monopoly? I don't know."
Ticketmaster owns TicketsNow, which is why Holman, of Silver Spring, thought something was fishy when she had the same experience.
"It feels like Ticketmaster is hoarding and saving seats in the venue that are going to TicketsNow," said the 100-show veteran. "We're not getting access to the seats."
Ticketmaster spokesman Albert Lopez acknowledges there were software problems Monday - but only for people trying to buy tickets for shows in New Jersey and on New York's Long Island.
All those fans were contacted by phone or e-mail and provided seats, he said.
The rest of Monday's frustration, Lopez said, resulted from high demand for Springsteen tickets and the fact that they quickly sold out, not from anything Ticketmaster did.
While Ticketmaster offered an optional TicketsNow button for Springsteen buyers, he said, nobody was automatically sent to the site.
"There is no automatic redirect," Lopez said. "A fan has to physically click the button."
"It happened automatically without me touching a damn thing," said Holman.
I talked to three other customers, including Kandell, who said they had the same experience.
Why was Ticketmaster even allowed to buy TicketsNow last year?
Lopez says Ticketmaster doesn't own the tickets sold on TicketsNow. They're put up by individuals and licensed brokers, some of whom could have already had seats to sell early Monday, he said. Ticketmaster will no longer provide optional links to TicketsNow, it says, unless performers allow it.
But both companies under the same roof is still a breathtaking conflict of interest, subject to little oversight. TicketsNow is one of Ticketmaster's fastest-growing units.
The Internet has been unkind to many media and entertainment businesses, but Ticketmaster is an exception. In a parallel universe it might have been regulated as a natural monopoly like electricity. But even electric companies aren't much regulated these days.
Years after the band Pearl Jam complained about Ticketmaster before a star-struck congressional subcommittee, the company reigns supreme. This isn't 1991, however, when the George H.W. Bush government approved its buyout of rival Ticketron and helped create today's mess.
Springsteen has come out against a Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger, which is a start at fighting back. A Ticketmaster boycott by Springsteen would be better.
Real competition in ticket distribution would be the best deal of all. Barring that, a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into Monday's problems might ensure that we're not still reading Ticketmaster horror stories when Miley Cyrus has her comeback tour.
