Don Vaccaro

Ticketing career

Vaccaro is the Executive Chairman of TicketNetwork, a secondary ticketing business he founded in 2002. Prior to founding the company, Vaccaro had worked as a secondary ticket broker since 1979, starting by selling tickets on the street outside entertainment venues. The first set of tickets he sold were to a Jethro Tull concert at Madison Square Garden. He is also the founder of the TicketNews information website and the Ticket Summit annual conference and trade show. TicketNetwork provides point-of-sale software and aggregates the inventory of ticket brokers to provide to online secondary ticket outlets. Vaccaro has been the company’s CEO from 2002 to the present day, with the exception of a leave of absence in 2012 detailed below.

Lending career

Vaccaro is the CEO of RCN (Rehab Cash Now) Capital, which makes small business loans, in addition to short-term high-interest loans to investors. He also runs Entertainment Financial, which makes loans to TicketNetwork vendors. In 2013 Vaccaro attempted to take over the Community Bank of Bridgeport before it went under, however his bid was rejected by regulators who cited his lack of banking experience and concerns about his personal integrity, writing that "Your [application] failed to fully disclose or explain your lengthy arrest history and the existence or resolution of several tax liens in the public record". The bank failed as a result.

Writing and speaking

Vaccaro has spoken at events including Wharton Business school, Intix conference, Pollstar touring conference, NATB, TicketSummit, event and arena marketing conference, ALSD conference, the Billboard Touring Conference regarding secondary ticketing issues. He has also written opinion pieces for Connecticut newspapers.

Personal life

In 2012 Vaccaro faced criminal charges following an Oscar party in Connecticut, after which he took a leave of absence from TicketNetwork. He returned to the company later that year as Executive Chairman; the charges were dropped after Hartford Superior Court Judge, Jane Alexander, agreed on May 29 that the charges could be dismissed if Vaccaro completed a two-year accelerated rehabilitation program, a form of probation, imposing conditions such as treatment for substance abuse and abstension from alcohol. Vaccaro also owns the Moose Peak Light lighthouse near Jonesport, Connecticut.

Philanthropy

In 2016 Vaccaro and pastor Rev. Dr. Boise Kimber launched Grace Church Websites, a non-profit which offers local churches and nonprofit groups a wide variety of free Web-related services, including domain registration, website maintenance, annual domain renewal, content management system, and hosting. Since February of 2016, the company has worked with more than 600 churches and nonprofit organizations to launch free websites.