This week lightning struck twice for TicketsNow and the Springsteen camp. Approximately 300 fans who thought they had purchased tickets for Springsteen and The E Street Band’s May 18 show at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., learned they didn’t have diddly. As in no tickets.

On May 13 TicketsNow announced it would make it up to fans in the form of up to 200 percent refunds as well as other alternatives such as tickets to a Springsteen show at another venue.

Now Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, has posted on BruceSpringsteen.net comments he made to the Washington Post expressing his displeasure with the secondary ticketing outlet. As if that wasn’t enough, Landau also takes a swipe at the proposed Ticketmaster / Live Nation merger.

From BruceSpringsteen.net:

“1. We would like our audience to know that this is a problem caused entirely by Ticketmaster and its wholly owned subsidiary TicketsNow. Neither Bruce nor his management have any control whatsoever over these two troubled entities but we deeply resent the abuse of our fans.

“2. There are what now appear to be chronic problems with how Ticketmaster uses its secondary market ticket reseller TicketsNow. For example, the abuse of our fans in New Jersey by these two interlocking companies required the aggressive intervention of the State Attorney General Anne Milgram.

“3. I feel that these chaotic, continuous, and extremely curious system malfunctions deeply and adversely affect our audience and are all the more reason why the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation should be blocked by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.”

Jon Landau

Click here for BruceSpringsteen.net.

Click here for Pollstar article titled “E Street Ticket Shuffle.”