Joe Walsh Announces 2025 Edition of VetsAid Festival

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Joe Walsh has announced details of the 2025 edition of VetsAid, his annual festival to raise funds and awareness for the still urgent and significant needs of returning U.S. soldiers and their families. This year’s event, the ninth such edition, will feature full sets from Vince Gill, Ryan Bingham and The Texas Gentlemen and a “super-set” from Walsh with Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks and Nathaniel Rateliff, and more special guests to be announced. A national 501(c)3 non-profit veterans organization, VetsAid 2025 will take place at 6 p.m. on November 15 at the INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas. Tickets will go on sale on August 8, 10 a.m. Central time here, priced all-in starting at $50.

“It’s been a long-term goal of mine since we began VetsAid nearly ten years ago to bring it all home to my native Wichita to serve Kansan veterans and their families,” said Walsh in the August 1 announcement. “It’s where my parents were both born and are buried, where I was born and where I will always feel a deep connection and sense of heritage and responsibility. It is with great pride and gratitude that our traveling circus of love and community will make a stop in Wichita in 2025 and that I can share the experience with my dear friends who also happen to be some of the greatest American musicians I know: my fellow Eagle Vince Gill, the barnstorming Ryan Bingham, the powerhouse Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks – who also shares family roots in Wichita – and the magnificent Nathaniel Rateliff who will make this year’s show not just a show but a revival.”

VetsAid hosted its inaugural show on September 20, 2017 with a concert at the EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, VA featuring performances by Walsh, Zac Brown Band, Keith Urban and Gary Clark Jr. In subsequent editions, its host has been joined by such stars Don Henley, James Taylor, Chris Stapleton, Haim, Ringo Starr, ZZ Top, The Doobie Brothers, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Sheryl Crow, Brad Paisley, a newly reunited James Gang, NIN, The Black Keys, Dave Grohl, Jeff Lynne’s ELO, The War of Drugs, The Flaming Lips and Lucius. While VetsAid 2024 was unfortunately cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances, Walsh is recommitted to curating an exclusive once-in-a-lifetime festival lineup in a different American city each year with a large veteran and military population.

Watch the reunited James Gang perform “Funk #49” (with Grohl) at the 2022 concert

As every year, all net proceeds from the concert will go directly to the veterans’ services charities selected through a vetting process coordinated in tandem with the Combined Arms Institute. To date, VetsAid has disbursed more than $4,000,000 in grants. In 2025, VetsAid plans to disburse grants exclusively to organizations based in Kansas or with operations on the ground in Kansas; grant applications are open now via the VetsAid website.

Veterans and their wellbeing have always been important to Walsh, born November 20, 1947, and a Gold Star son himself. His father was a flight instructor for the first U.S. operational jet powered aircraft, the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, and died while stationed and on active duty on Okinawa when Walsh was 20 months old.

Walsh aims to use this platform to raise funds and awareness for the still urgent and significant needs of our returning soldiers and their families. Through the establishment of VetsAid and this annual benefit concert, he aims to give back to those who have given so much in sacrifice for this country.