Vet Tix founder Michael Focareto

A Navy veteran with deep military roots, Michael Focareto now runs charitable powerhouse that has rallied free seats at sporting and entertainment events for our nation’s veterans.

A 48-year-old veteran, who had suffered a massive IED attack and took bullets to the body during his U.S. Army service in Iraq and Afghanistan, normally could not tolerate crowds or loud noises. But when he received complimentary tickets for his favorite band, Shinedown, he sang every lyric with gusto during the two-hour concert, his amazed wife wrote to Michael Focareto.

Though her husband had suffered from addiction, PTSD, suicidal thoughts and cancer, he radiated happiness during the show, she said.

“This event may have not only saved our marriage, it mended a bad, bad situation between our son and him, and it brought back the man we lost years ago. Who knew a concert could restore a man to the man he was! God bless!” she wrote.

Stories like that are the reason Focareto, 56, a U.S. Navy veteran, started and still leads a nonprofit organization called Vet Tix. It distributes free tickets to major sporting events, music concerts and other fun activities that can ease veterans’ stress, inspire them to attend with family members or friends, and help nurture those relationships.

The motto of Vet Tix — which bestows tickets not just upon veterans and active-duty military but also families of those killed in action and first responders — is “Give something to those who gave.” Focareto was one of those who gave: He served as a naval nuclear engineer on the guided-missile cruiser USS Virginia during the first Gulf War.

Like many huge operations, Vet Tix started small.

Focareto, who grew up in Cleveland, moved to Arizona after his Navy service and completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in computers and information management. Then, in 2007, he embarked on a leadership training course, where his homework was to enlist five friends and organize a project to better his community.

He had the idea to give tickets to veterans but had to work through several practical considerations before reaching an arrangement with the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team: The team would donate tickets if he purchased some, resulting in 200 recipients.

While the project was in the planning stages, a friend invited him to the Super Bowl in February 2008, and Focareto noticed there were empty seats. Turning to his friend, he asked something like, “What if we took our project to the next level and created something where people (or venues) with empty seats could donate those tickets?”

They established Vet Tix, aka Veteran Tickets Foundation, in March 2008. On July 4 that same year, the first 200 recipients from the original leadership project attended the Diamondbacks game.

Many of the original project buddies are key leaders in Vet Tix today.

Focareto’s devotion to aiding veterans may have started because his father, Michael Focareto Jr., served in Vietnam; or because his late grandfather, also named Michael Focareto, served in World War II; or even because his great-grandfather Antonio Focareti (the spelling got changed) arrived from Italy seeking opportunity and a better life.

Were Antonio alive today, he would be stunned at the scale his great-grandson and his associates have attained.

In the organization’s 18 years of existence, “we’ve given away 40 million tickets worth $2.8 billion,” Focareto says. Any veteran or military personnel can join Vet Tix for free as a member, request tickets, and if they’re available, receive them for a delivery fee ranging from $1.97 to $16.97 — even for the Super Bowl, he notes. Those fees mostly go to buy more tickets, he says, emphasizing Vet Tix operates as a 99% organization, meaning that for every dollar that comes in, 99 cents goes out.

Paying the delivery fee also means the recipients “have a little skin in the game,” he says, which increases the likelihood they’ll actually show up to use the tickets. “The donors want butts in seats,” he quips.

“Whatever money we have left over, (Vet Tix) was designed to spend money with our donors,” Focareto says. “Sometimes we’ll buy one ticket and they donate three.”

The organization has 48,000 donors.

“Donors can be teams, leagues, concert promoters,” he says, noting Vet Tix has partnered with every baseball team in the United States, including the Chicago Cubs and White Sox. It has also partnered with every NBA team, including the Chicago Bulls, and 20 NFL teams, including the Chicago Bears.

It also has partnered with college teams, and Live Nation and Ticketmaster for entertainment. Locally, Onesti Entertainment has donated tens of thousands of tickets, Focareto notes.

Focareto is the founder, CEO and CFO of the organization. He’s also literate in the technology that allows the organization to distribute about 36,000 tickets every day.

Through Vet Tix, recipients have received tickets for themselves and their spouses or families to almost every imaginable kind of sporting event, including the FIFA World Cup, Super Bowl and World Series, Focareto says.

Recently, recipients have enjoyed concerts by Billy Idol, Ed Sheeran, Guns N’ Roses, Roger Daltrey (formerly of The Who), Smokey Robinson, Journey and Three Dog Night, in addition to symphonies, circuses, theatrical productions and more. Veterans who join the organization as members can attend multiple events. Membership is also free.

Focareto says veterans’ testimonials and thank-you’s, displayed on the website, are powerful and meaningful.

One veteran wrote, “Events like this are not just ‘a night out’ for me; they are a vital lifeline for my mental health. Stepping away from the daily grind and immersing myself in the music … provides a sense of connection, joy and peace that is difficult to find elsewhere.”

The events have also helped save relationships, ease the stress military life puts on spouses, and strengthen family bonds, since many events welcome children, according to Focareto.

Many veterans are struggling financially, Focareto notes. About 15% of Vet Tix members earn less than $35,000 in family income; another 15% earn $35,000 to $50,000 as a family unit; and 26% earn $51,000 to $74,000. Fortunate veterans earn more, but some veterans have to turn down event tickets because they have no funds for parking and refreshments. Unfortunately, Vet Tix doesn’t have funding to bridge that gap, he says.

Nineteen years after embarking on the endeavor that planted the seed for Vet Tix, Focareto reflects, “It was a project. I was happily employed, working for a large software company, I really had no idea this would be my path at all.”

Yet the path unfolded.

“It became a challenge and it was fulfilling,” he says. “The marriages it saves and the fact that people didn’t commit suicide, all I want to do is share with more people.”

A lot of good comes from allowing veterans to reintegrate and be part of their families and communities, he notes.

“It slows you down, and makes you appreciate life,” he says.

For more, click here.

https://www.vettix.org/

The above article appears in the December 2026 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.

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