Hello, and welcome to Six Flags Entertainment Corporation 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. After the speaker's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during that time, please press star and then one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to the Six Flags Management for opening remarks. Please go ahead.
Good morning. and welcome to Six Flags Entertainment Corporation's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm Michael Russell, Six Flags Head of Investor Relations. On the call today with me are John Riley, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ash Walia, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call may be forward-looking statements. These are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described. Please refer to our earnings release and SEC filings for a discussion of these risks. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.
Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. In the second quarter, we made meaningful progress against the strategic priorities we established at the beginning of the year improving our operating performance through the first half before reviewing those results i want to clarify the basis of comparison we will use today as defined in our earnings release same park basis refers to the parks we operated during the full second quarter of 2026 unless otherwise noted our year-over-year comparisons measure those parks against the same parks in the second quarter of 2025. We believe this provides the clearest view of the business we manage today. On that basis, attendance increased four percent despite 44 fewer operating days in the second quarter. Net revenues increased more than two percent, adjusted EBITDA increased seven percent, and our active pass base grew six percent entering the peak summer season looking beyond that quarter and excluding the seven parks sold in the portfolio transaction and the park we closed following the 2025 operating season first half adjusted ebitda increased approximately 63 percent or 56 million dollars and trailing 12 month adjusted ebitda totaled 801 million dollars compared with 745 million for the full year 2025. We also completed a deep dive into the group we described on our third quarter 2025 call as the underperforming parks. That analysis confirmed meaningful upside relative to their historical performance. In the second quarter, stronger local leadership, clearer accountability, focused resources, and improved commercial execution produced higher adjusted EBITDA and better margins at these parks we are seeing disciplined execution is producing better financial outcomes and reinforcing our conviction in the opportunity one of the first steps we took earlier this year was restoring experienced park presidents at our largest parks because our business performs best when decisions are made closest to our guests these leaders are on the ground every day responding quickly to changing conditions and empowering their teams. They now have clear accountability for the guest experience, revenue generation, labor deployment, ride uptime, and throughput, together with full responsibility for their park-level P&L. They have a strong voice in the long-range plans we are establishing for each site. We have also strengthened leadership across our central park support teams. Mark Pauls recently joined Six Flags as Chief Operating Officer. And in June, Amy Martin Ziegenfuss joined as Chief Marketing Officer after leading marketing for Carnival Cruise Line. Together with Ash Walia, who joined as Chief Financial Officer in mid-June, these appointments complete a refreshed C-suite with deep operating, financial, and commercial experience a strong bias for accountability and genuine enthusiasm for the opportunity ahead our customers are not one uniform audience a family considering its first visit has different motivations from a thrill-seeking teenager an active pass holder a lapsed guest or someone considering a premium experience we are developing more precise segmentation and tailoring the message product and value proposition for each audience we are also improving the pacing and allocation of marketing investment in measuring the incremental attendance revenue and contribution generated by individual campaigns and channels not simply impressions clicks or gross ticket sales our unified ticketing crm and first party data capabilities support more precise offers stronger acquisition efficiency, better renewal rates, cross-park visitation, and in-park spending. Our season pass and membership strategy is another source of confidence. During the quarter season pass sales increased, our active pass base grew 6%, membership participation expanded, and demand for higher tier products remained strong. Importantly, both our single day and and our combined season pass and membership products yielded higher average prices. In June, we expanded our membership offering to six additional parks. Cross-park visitation also continued to grow as guests used the flexibility of our multi-park products to visit more parks during the season. These benefit-rich choices deepen engagement, strengthen recurring revenue, and improve visibility into future demand. On average, a passholder visits approximately four times per year, creating multiple opportunities to purchase food and beverages, merchandise, games, parking, and premium experiences. As attendance shifts toward passholders, admissions revenue per visit may decline because pass revenue is recognized across multiple visits. We view that as an attractive trade when the guest pays more upfront, visits more often, and generates incremental in-park spending. Our objective is to maximize the total seasonal and lifetime value of each guest relationship, while ensuring those incremental visits remain profitable. The guest experience remains the foundation of our strategy, and ride availability is one of its most important drivers. Ride uptime improved in the quarter and year to date, although performance remains uneven across parks. We We incurred higher repair and maintenance expense at certain parks as we reduce downtime, and we will not compromise on safety. Our continuing work on uptime and throughput delivers more attraction experiences for guests, rebuilds guest trust, supports repeat visitation, and strengthens long-term pricing power. Capital investment is also essential to the strategy. Every project must compete for capital, enhance the guest experience, and deliver an attractive long-term return. while our multi-year plans responsibly address guest amenities and comfort this year's lineup includes tormentor rampaging run at six flags over texas phantom theater at king's island the reimagined looney tunes land at magic mountain and shoreline pier at six flags great adventure together with locally tailored america 250 programming these investments give guests new reasons to visit encourage repeat visitation and support stronger returns on the capital we deploy we also simplified our portfolio the sale of seven smaller non-core parks lets us concentrate leadership operating resources and capital on the properties with the greatest long-term potential to operate more consistently to allocate capital more effectively and reduce leverage with that I'd like to introduce our new Chief Financial Officer, Ash Walia, who joined us in mid-June and is already having a positive impact on our company. Ash will review our second quarter financial results, expense performance, and balance sheet. Ash?
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be with you, and I look forward to meeting many of you in the quarters ahead. Before discussing the quarter in more detail, I'd like to address our year-over-year comparisons. As noted in our earnings release, reported second quarter 2025 results included eight parks that are no longer part of our operating portfolio. Those parks contributed approximately $86 million of revenue in the last year's second quarter. My remarks will focus primarily on our current operating portfolio, which provides the clearest view of the business we manage today. On a same-part basis, net revenue increased 2% to approximately $864 million, despite 44 fewer operating days. Attendance increased approximately 449,000 visits, or 4% driven by continued strength in season pass visitation and the commercial initiatives John discussed. Per capita spending declined modestly by less than 1%, primarily because seasons pass and membership visits represented a larger share of attendance. This is a mix and revenue recognition effect. Not weaker pricing, as John noted, like-for-like pricing increased across our admission products. Guest spending remained healthy across food and beverage, extra charge attractions, and our other in-park experiences. Let's move to expenses. Second quarter, operating days declined 3%. Most of our park-level expenses, base is fixed or semi-fixed. We incur substantial labor, maintenance, utilities, insurance, and overhead costs, regardless of the precise number of days the parks are open. When we reduce operating days, these costs are allocated over fewer days, so expense per operating day may increase mechanically. Investors, therefore, should not expect expense per operating day or total quarterly expenses to decline at the same percentage as the operating days. Even with that fixed and semi-fixed cost structure, our PARC teams manage strong cost discipline, allowing us to retain a meaningful portion of the quarter's incremental revenue. As a result, second quarter, same PARC adjusted EBITDA increased approximately 7% to $249 million, demonstrating that the operational initiatives John discussed are translating into improved financial performance. Turning to the balance sheet, we continue to strengthen our financial position during the quarter. We use proceeds from the portfolio transaction together with improved operating cash flow and disciplined capital spending to reduce outstanding borrowings while maintaining substantial liquidity. Deferred revenue increased on a current operating portfolio basis reflecting continued growth in membership and advanced sales we ended the quarter with approximately 135 million of cash total liquidity of approximately 837 million and a net debt of approximately 4.9 billion with that i'll turn the call back to john thanks ash let me turn to our outlook excluding the seven parks sold in the portfolio transaction and the park we closed following the 2025 operating season, trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA was $801 million compared with $745 million for the full year 2025.
Building on that progress, we expect adjusted EBITDA to continue to grow year over year in the second half of 2026. That expectation incorporates two headwinds at the start of the third quarter. The unfavorable July 4 calendar shifts and wildfire-related air quality disruptions. We expect to grow despite these factors. Importantly, on days in July that were not affected by these disruptions, we saw very healthy performance, which included delivering our highest summer attendance day over the last five years on a same park combined basis. These results provide compelling evidence that underlying demand among our guests remains strong despite the calendar shift and wildfire-related air quality disruptions affecting the month overall. For modeling purposes, we plan 2,133 operating days in the quarter, 66 more than last year's third quarter, primarily because the timing of Labor Day provides an additional week of summer operations at several northern and midwestern parks. On August 7th, we will launch our 2027 passes with a new best price guarantee, enhanced benefits, and new flexible dining plan options. That launch and our seasonal events will be supported by larger active pass space, broader membership availability, more targeted marketing, and continued work on ride uptime and throughput. We will maintain the same expense discipline that benefited the first half our fourth quarter plan adds several demand drivers when we launch america's biggest halloween party with 448 halloween themed experiences from coast to coast we'll host visitors at 107 haunted mazes immersing guests into some of the world's most iconic horror franchises with 11 new ones in 2026. our commercial team is improving upon our Halloween event upsell experiences. We're also restoring Holiday in the Park at two of the parks where it was not offered in 2025, including Six Flags Over Georgia and Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. Our efforts to operate more efficiently and expand margins to our potential will continue as a high priority, boosted by new resources and approaches in workforce deployment now led by Mark Pauls, and in supply chain value creation, where Ash brings considerable experience to us. Beyond the fourth quarter, construction is underway on our 2027 attraction pipeline, including Bakunawa at Six Flags Great Adventure, Werewolf Gorge at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Rip Roar and Falls at Carolwinds, and the reintroduction of Georgia Gold Rusher at Six Flags over Georgia. And just this morning, we announced that for 2027, Six Flags Great America in Chicago will debut Camp Timber Trail, featuring nine attractions and experiences, making it one of the largest family-focused investments in Great America's history. Over time, we believe this business can deliver adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30% range, while reducing leverage toward our long-term objective of approximately four times over the past several months we have assembled the management team needed to execute this plan mark pauls recently joined us as chief operating officer completing a leadership team with the experience and accountability to execute at a higher level the second quarter was an encouraging step in six flags transformation Our priorities remain clear. Strengthen park-level accountability, improve the guest experience, build our commercial capabilities, and allocate capital with discipline. Together, these actions are producing stronger financial performance and building long-term shareholder value. Before we take your questions, I want to thank our team members across the company. Their commitment, energy, and dedication makes this business successful. We are encouraged by our progress, confident in our direction, and excited about the opportunities ahead. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. We'd be happy to take questions.
Thank you. We are now opening the floor for question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Kindly limit your questions to one question and one follow-up. We will pause for a brief moment to wait for the questions to come in. Your first question comes from the line of Steve Wyszynski of Stiefel. Your line is now open.
Hey guys, good morning. So John, I want to start with, you gave some high-level thoughts around July and it looks like you were, you know, probably somewhat impacted there by weather and then the shift in the 4th of July holiday. Can you maybe help us think a little bit more about how July trended, you know, from a like for like basis, you know, either whether that's from an attendance basis or, you know, from a revenue basis, just trying to get a sense for how we should be starting the third quarter off. Thanks.
Hey, Steve, good morning. Thanks for the question. So if it helps, while we aren't giving guidance for the third, fourth quarter or the year, what we will say is we expect to grow EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA in the balance of the year. And so let me take you through a few points about July and then the balance of the year that might be helpful for your modeling. So first of all, I'd note, if you look at the trailing 12 months, our adjusted EBITDA, again, on a same park basis is $801 million. And that's compared to $745 million in full year 2025. We expect to grow upon that $801 million in the back half. We have some positives and some negatives. So, in July, there are some negative factors, and we don't want to dwell on any short-run negative factors because we believe there's a lot of potential in this business that's within our control over time, and over time, as I said, we expect to grow. However, the fourth, you know, fell on a Saturday, which does affect some people who like to bridge a holiday into a longer period, you know, versus prior year where it was on a Friday. And then we had some disruption from wildfire quality, air quality issues, really, you know, across the Great Lakes and from Toronto down to Virginia over various periods of time and even caused some park closures for for air quality what encouraged us in july is as we move through the month it's one of the points that we made earlier is that we had um a day where our cumulative attendance total was the best we've seen in five years so we're seeing demand come back um uh you know when we have positive conditions and that's our expectation for the business over time and and again where we are in attendance year today where we are on our past base gives us gives us positive indications as we go forward when you look at the six percent uh pass and membership based growth that's a positive indicator as we go forward in q3 and q4 we have more folks in our membership programs our membership programs are our higher per cap programs and they have more importantly almost they have higher renewal rates and we'll have more and more guests um renewing over the back two quarters uh than we had last year so that's another positive factor um we have an extra week of of summer essentially with labor day and that's driving uh along with the new holidays in december that's driving the additional operating days that we referenced the and then you know the other thing that i would mention um that that we're really encouraged by is halloween uh we just went through some of the factors on it in about two weeks, we're going to be announcing some of the IPs that we're expanding to, including four pretty new and exciting ones. When you look at the scope of what we have in Halloween, you know, no one's doing anything in this kind of scope, in this kind of geographic range, and with this many attractions. So, we're really excited about Halloween, about the programming that we have coming in um so if when you take that all into effect uh we expect to grow in in q3 and q4 and in the back half of the year uh the opportunities with holiday halloween and holiday in the parks probably provide the greatest opportunity um for q4 relative to q3 okay gotcha thanks for that that's good color john and then second question i don't know if this is for you or for ash but But I just want to ask about the opportunity to now de-leverage moving forward.
And I guess what I'm trying to understand is with you guys generating, John, you just kind of said somewhere around $800 million in EBITDA, you should potentially even maybe beat that. We have the CapEx number. We have the cash interest. We have the cash taxes. We put all this together. That would still kind of show us somewhere around that kind of break-even free cash flow point, if not maybe even slightly negative this year. So, just wondering how we should think about deleveraging moving forward, especially, I mean, you guys are going to have this, you know, Atlanta or Georgia payment coming up as well sometime next year. So, any color there would be super helpful.
Sure. So, as we've said, our goal over time is to get to a 4.0 net leverage debt to EBITDA, and our confidence remains that we can get there. We have the liquidity to manage the Georgia payments. And so, I mean, we're in a position to do that when that comes due. So, we still feel good about our program going forward. We're judicious in our capital expense. We feel like we're addressing all the needs. We should be in a 400 to 425 range. But over time, we still feel good about getting the net leverage down to where it should be.
Okay, great.
Appreciate the color. your next question comes from the line of james hardiman of a city your line is now open hey good morning um so just as a point of clarification um uh steve had asked about sort of july but but john i think i just heard you say you expect to grow not only in the second half but both in 3q and 4q i guess the simple version of the question is how much of a hole do you need to dig yourself out of coming out of July to grow EBITDA in the third quarter?
What I would say about July relative to the rest of the third quarter is that what we have coming ahead are, again, this expanded pass and membership base. We have the favorable calendar in terms of where Labor Day is falling. We have additional days to drive that business. We also will have people, as we said, in terms of membership, other revenue initiatives driving us forward. That said, the opportunity for growth is bigger in Q4, and we expect more towards the end of the half, Q4.
That makes sense. And then this is sort of a modeling question. I don't know how well this is going to go, what a term of earnings call, because it's a little bit of minutia. But, you know, I think as we think about the second quarter, that 9% delta between sort of the reported attendance number and the same store number, I think that was bigger than most people were anticipating. Hayden, can you help us with how to think about sort of the gap that the sold parks is going to create over the next couple of quarters? Attendance would be a great starting point, but anything you could give us on per caps, revenues, EBITDA overall, but you would give it some sort of pro forma tables last time around, but maybe just so we're all on the same page, just understanding those reported versus same store numbers going forward would be really helpful sure james i mean we would we would refer you back to the table um that that uh that you all can find in the q1 earnings report where we gave uh you know the balance of the year by quarter um the attendance impacts for the uh specified parks versus the consolidated company
uh number and so uh you know in q4 the the numbers are there for attendance and revenue of uh of what we modeled and then in q um you know q3 and uh i'm sorry in q2 and in q3 and q4 it's about a 66 million um ebitda impact uh for the balance of the year but we'd refer everybody back to that table.
I will follow up on that one.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of Lizzie Dove of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask on just kind of the margin and cost side. And so if I'm doing my math right here, I think margins were up about 50 basis points year on year, but off of a base of when they were maybe kind of down over 600 basis points last quarter when, you know, you'd obviously had some challenges and, you know, both revenue and costs. And so, you know, I guess as we think about from here, not looking for specific guidance, but just how do you think about the ability to kind of, you know, increase some of the cost savings and, you know, the margin power from here? Thanks.
Yeah, we feel good about the flow through that we've been able to generate. And if you look at Q2, we picked up about 1.2 points, 120 basis points in margin on a same park basis. And we could walk through that at a later time. But we picked up margin. We had strong flow through the quarter as we've had for half one. But we're in the early stages on this. And we believe we have considerable growth. And we've mentioned before that there are plenty of proof points. And given the scale of the company, we have the potential to get to the mid-30s over time that remains our goal i'm especially encouraged by the you know the team members that have just joined us i mean ash first and in finance has extensive supply chain experience and ash is already you know starting to make an impact but he's just arrived and then uh mark paul's um in in operations has extensive experience both improving the guest experience and doing it very efficiently so including with our labor deployment so we're encouraged by the skills that we brought on i think we have a we have a good proof point in terms of expanding it expanding our margins
in q1 and q2 on a same park basis and we expect to be able to over time accelerate that and get to the get to the mid-30s as we've said great makes sense and then just on the per cap side of things so appreciate q4 and q1 aren't super indicative quarters given its lower volume but it does seem like a bit of a reversal from the growth we've seen those past couple of quarters versus what you did now on a same park base and i know you talked about some of these initiatives um in terms of maybe what's hitting that but could you maybe kind of share more of that is that kind of a specific q2 thing or is that something that you know we should expect to kind of continue from here sure um and good question if and if you remember uh for the uh q4 of 2025 and i believe
for q1 of 2026 we mentioned that um you know there was there was a bit outsized per cap growth and that um that that you know we wouldn't extrapolate that for the full year um and when you look at uh you look at Q2, this is an intentional strategy that we've been talking about to grow our pass and membership base. And if you look at the pass plus membership category of tickets, the average ticket sold was sold at a higher price than in the previous comparable period, same par. And the same goes for what we call demand tickets or single day tickets, which includes our group and single day demand tickets that are that are sold for the parks that category also increased on an average price basis versus the same period same park basis due to 2025. so we feel good about our ability to continue to expand the past and membership program You may see mixed effects as a result of that, ticket mixed effects, but we're building total revenue per customer and total lifetime customer value, so that's part of an intentional strategy. In the quarter, you did have some also park mix within the same park portfolio. We had some parks outperforming, and so you have some natural park mix shifts. Going forward in the quarter, just to give you a little bit of color again, we have some membership impacts that will help us as we move forward. We also have some strong initiatives on in-park, including on our queuing programs and including on some per-cap expansion for Halloween.
Great. Thanks so much.
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Moronka of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
Guys, thanks for taking the questions. John, I was hoping maybe you could talk a little bit about any efforts to kind of connect ancillary to pass sales on a pre-sale basis. basis i i know you've um you know the cruise lines are famous for this and you you recently brought in um you know some some new leadership there and marketing some i was hoping you can if you see an opportunity to maybe you know meaningfully increase the attachment of those um of some ancillary revenue to the past sales um on a pre-sale basis thanks yeah great great question and it is a deliberative strategy that we have in the company um one of the one of the um the
folks that's been promoted in our recent leadership initiatives across the company is Chris Meiering, who is heading up commercial for the group, and we're also working with external experts that have worked in the field a lot in terms of pricing, and we're really building on our capabilities. We have made some changes in some ancillary product initiatives under Chris's leadership. One would be Fastlane, where we tested different approaches from each of the legacy companies in parks, and now we have an optimal way going forward that will help us, particularly in 2027. The other thing that we've done, Chris, is made some changes to our dining programs. This is a huge program, a huge satisfier for many of our guests. It drives a lot of attendance and a lot of football. And our commercial team has researched, tested, and now deploying today with our past launch new dining program options that give guests more flexibility for both limited plans and all-season plans. And on the all-season plans, we did feel that we were underpriced. And so we've taken those up, but we've given people really also very affordable plans with certain limits uh and i would say the early returns because we did launch a few parks uh in the last week or two are that we're seeing a double digit growth in attachment rate so far but but very early returns okay uh super helpful thanks thanks john and then as a follow-up um i won't ask you for a specific number on 27 or beyond but um directionally do you think you're possibly moving closer to a place where you uh trade some some hard capex dollars for
some soft capex dollars and by that i just mean kind of um you know coasters versus like live entertainment that doesn't necessarily have a um you know fixed hard cost to it is that is that something that's kind of on the table going forward as well yeah it's a good question and And as we mentioned, we're launching our 2027 PASS program in most parks today, this afternoon.
And one of the great drivers for PASS is our event series. And we do very well with Halloween, and we do well with Christmas period events, holiday in the parks, and Winterfest. But we have a great case study within our own portfolio of a food and beverage event with the Boysenberry event at Knott's Berry Farms. And it's a fantastic event, drives very high per caps, very high visitation, and very high pass renewal. And so we'll be launching more food and beverage events across the portfolio next year. And, you know, we believe events are a very efficient way to deploy capital as we go forward.
Great.
Thanks, John.
Your next question comes from the line of Ian Zinfino. Oh, Oppenheimer, your line is now open. My line is now open.
Thank you very much. Just wanted to kind of look at the numbers here and kind of the points that you've given us. And maybe give us your thoughts on the consumer and, you know, kind of the ability to maybe push price.
I mean, it seems like some of the pricing was up on an Apple-to-Apple basis based on your comments. maybe give us a sense of like how much that was and kind of also what's been driving some of the in-park spend you know as relates to kind of the strength of the consumer thanks um so the you know relative to the strength of the consumer i will probably characterize this answer the way we did on the last call as well look we're finding uh consumers to be responsive um we're putting out strong values and working very hard to improve the experiences in the parks, and we see consumers respond. You see the attendance increase at 4% and the pass base increasing at 6%. So, we believe there's a lot in our power to drive visitation and consumer spending, including per capita spending, as we go forward. And when we have well-researched products and effective marketing to convert people to those products we're seeing the potential i mentioned fast pass our queuing programs initiatives we have there our dining program has huge appeal to our visitors and we expect um that will continue and even expand with new flexible programs uh we're launching new concepts in um in f and b um new new refresher beverage concepts and other things that are that are getting good early returns um so we see when we do the right things um we're able to move the uh
the in-park spending per capita okay thank you and then on the multi-park pass um you know how is that going i know you kind of commented that it was going okay but maybe a little bit more color on that as far as the maybe the economic benefit of it what it means to the the company and how do we think about this going forward as far as the the maturation period of this because it was just introduced thanks yeah so i'd say we're in the early stages right it was just introduced and a couple of proof points that have us very encouraged when it was introduced
our past sales went on a much stronger trajectory and and some of that we credit to better product architecture better merchandising uh better conversion rates on our website from from people shopping to people buying uh so there's a lot happening to drive it but but but clearly it coincided with the introduction of the multi-park visits at on a regional basis and we're seeing the usage of the past follow the same pattern we're seeing people within regions visiting at very healthy rates on cross parks. And just one illustrative example would be in Los Angeles. I mean, we have two of the greatest parks in the world with Knott's Berry Farm and Magic Mountain, and we're seeing lots of cross visitation, and we're seeing people in greater Los Angeles and Orange County respond very strongly with the value of buying one pass at their home park and having the ability to visit a very different kind of park and have a very well-rounded experience across the two. So we're in the early stages. Halloween will also be a good read on that as we've just sent out CRM communications regionally, inviting people to visit our other parks this summer. We'll do the same for Halloween. So we're in the early stages, but everything we see is encouraging about the appeal to our guests.
Okay, thank you very much.
Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Kindly limit your questions to one question and one follow-up. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Chaykin of Mizuho. Your line is now open.
Hi, it's Alok Patel on for Ben Chaykin. Thanks for taking our questions. Just, if I'm not mistaken, the same park attendance in 2Q26 release seems about $500,000 different than what was suggested in the 1Q release that you pointed us to earlier. Maybe to ask the previous question differently, what is the 3Q25 and 4Q25 same park base we should be using for going forward?
From the table that we had in the Q1 earnings, we had $3 million in Q3 and $1 million in Q4. I'm going to give you one more decimal point, so that helps in your modeling. It's $2.9 million in Q3 and $0.6 million in Q4.
Hopefully that helps. okay yeah that's helpful and then just a quick follow-up um how should we think about cash costs for the balance of the year uh 2q25 had elevated marketing costs you guys look like in 2q were roughly flat uh on the same park basis does does that imply that 2h cash costs will be higher year over year i think you could expect modest growth in the cash costs over the balance of the year okay thanks that's everything i have thank you your next question comes from the line of apreen pacharian of ubs your line is now open hi good morning thank you very much for taking my question
um i was wondering if you could comment a little bit more on per cap spend in the context of sold parks specifically when we think about these lower margin parks that were sold and think about ancillary spend of those parks and the fact that you know some of those higher performing remaining parks should have better per cap spend could you comment why that spent on per cap basis shouldn't grow nicely year over year again on same park adjusted basis i know on admission side of things you know past product mix improvement can impact admissions per cap you know the more successful past product you have that can put pressure a little bit on admissions per cap but I'm just asking about in-park spend here, and then I have a quick follow-up.
Hi, Arpane. It's a good question, and what I would say is the way we've presented and talked about the per cap quarter over quarter, year over year is on the same park basis, so it adjusts out for the parks that we sold. um would would some of those with those parks likely have had a lower average uh potentially yes a lower average per capita okay but on the same park basis it should be uh should be comparable for you yeah no absolutely i was just wondering why i didn't see that growing a little bit more than um or maybe on go forward basis it shouldn't grow slightly better than um given most of the park sold were really sort of lower margin or margin parks yeah I think one of one of the one of the impacts there is is mix of parks so I would you know we had we had strong growth for example in in Canada and Mexico and that that's where like park of park mix can affect the overall number okay okay thank you and then I'm so sorry I'm hoping between calls today so it's very possible you went through this in detail.
Really apologize in advance if you have to repeat yourself, but I was hoping if you could talk a little bit more about EBITDA flow through for the quarter. You were comping some marketing pull forward, but then there were some shift in maintenance costs that shifted out of Q1 into Q2. Anything else that you could share on that EBITDA flow through to help us better understand this quarter? Thank you.
Those are the major factors, Arpanet, I think you hit them. As we mentioned on the Q1 call, we expected some of the savings in Q1 to pull forward in terms of maintenance costs. We saw that as we worked on ride-up time. Some of that materialized. And then you're correct about marketing. But we feel good about the flow-through that we've seen year-to-date. It's very strong. And in the quarter, 1.2% better. plenty of opportunity for growth over time to get to our target in the mid-30s.
Wonderful. Thank you very much.
Appreciate it. Your next question comes from the line of David of Jeffries. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I know you've covered a lot already. I don't believe we've had any discussion about um sort of the the base of parks and whether you know there are sort of parks on the edge that continue to be reviewed and and you know whether the divestiture concept is still something that's an ongoing um you know ongoing process or should we look at the base as fairly set for the moment it's a good question and and for now what i would say um is that uh we don't expect any changes in portfolio parks this year as i mentioned we're um we're launching our past sales today and uh
our past launch last year i think was probably impacted by some of that discussion so i think it's important for our consumers to know that we don't have any changes planned right now i would say that of course we'll always look to do what is best in terms of creating value in the business and creating value in our shareholders. So we wouldn't exclude any discussion in the future, but no current plan. Understood.
And then, you know, this may be an unusual question, but, you know, I think too often, you know, we on Wall Street, you know, position companies, consumers, either at one end of the K or the other end of the K, and it feels to be, you know, becoming more and more of a binary question. You know, where on that letter, Kay, do you sort of put your people or are they dispersed? And, you know, how would you have us think about your population of target consumers in that way?
Yeah. So this gets back to the potential we have with our new marketing and commercial organization and some of the priorities that our new chief marketing officer have in the business. We have opportunities to further segment our offering and to speak to different audiences of guests. There's a good example with Magic Mountain relaunching Looney Tunes this year for kids in one of the world's greatest thrill parks, greatest coaster parks. We've successfully launched a kids attraction and we're super pleased with that. In Chicago, a great thrill park, we're launching a family and kids attraction for 2027. So we have a great offering across the portfolio for all kinds of audiences with our events, with our rides, with our thrill rides, our family rides, and family attractions and entertainment. And so the opportunity we have is to better segment our marketing through better data capabilities and speak to audiences that are out there. So I would say we have opportunity, because our effort to target different segments is very limited at this point, we have opportunities to expand all over the consumer spectrum, whatever side of the K they might be coming from. So I see our opportunity as one to build our capability, and we can appeal across segments. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Pace of J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning, and also apologies if this stuff was gone over. Also a busy morning here, but, you know, look, season pass sales and up-tiering on pricing and packaging is a good trend. Just to maybe focus on the plus 4% attendance growth, and obviously this is not the only way or right way to think about it, But, you know, weather just seemed better than plus 4% year over year. I know there was some early noise with spring break and Easter. So how much did that impact on the percentage point basis maybe? And then any other puts and takes? I would just love to hear whether, you know, did plus 4% meet your expectations? And then I have a quick couple follow-ups.
Yeah. Again, I, you know, we prefer to take up a bit of a longer view over quarters. and over the year, and in Q2 and early in the year, I mean, clearly we had better conditions in California, and we should acknowledge that, but in terms of spring break, we did have an impact from the pull forward of Easter and some of the spring break calendars relative to the prior year, and that cascaded into some other things like Knott's Berry Farm. We opened the Boysenberry Festival was a very high per cap, higher priced and higher attended event into more of it into Q1. So we saw those impacts. Certainly we would say in some regions like California, yes, we saw improved conditions. We feel good about the traction for our past sales program. And when you look at the leading indicators of the growth of our base and what we believe will be the stickiness of the base for renewal and people moving into higher tiers and higher products. That's the important leading indicator for us strategically.
You know, we always want to do better than what we did, but we believe 4% and 6% on the paths is a good sign that our initial initiatives are focused in the right area and we believe we can continue to yield them got it and then um i'm not sure who this one is for but um in the past you've mentioned potential to sell some unused land and i'm curious where that stands and you know versus you know prior expectations on dollars and timing um any um any thoughts there and then just your prior commitment that any and all asset sale proceeds would be used to pay down debt can reiterate that if you can thank you i'll start by reiterating the second part which i think
is uh is important you know is important everybody for the asset sales that will be used to pay down debt and we have the long-term goal of of four times we have a the biggest uh uh land sale initiative that we have happening is is in buoy maryland at the site of the the former park there We have a signed contract, a purchase agreement for the park. The buyer is going through a due diligence process. You know, the window for that materializing is going to take some time. That might be late 2027, early 2028. But, you know, we made a lot of progress there. And then we're progressing well on the excess land in Richmond, Virginia. and we have some, I would say we have strong interest and some bids under evaluation for the excess land. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. That concludes today's Q&A session. I'll now turn it over to Michael Russell for closing remarks.
Thanks, Ellie, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. Our next earnings call will be in early November when we were report our third quarter, uh, 2026, uh, results. Uh, that concludes our call today, Ellie. Uh, uh, everyone can disconnect.
Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.