Six Flags Entertainment Aktie

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us on Six Flags Entertainment's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Tom Hennessy, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to point everyone to our third quarter 2026 earnings release and supplemental presentation, which were released this morning. Both can be found in the Investors section of the Six Flags website at www.sixflag.com. Some of our comments will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.

Forward-looking statements, which are usually identified by the use of words such as will, expect, should or other similar phrases are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. We refer you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition.

During the call, we will discuss our non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP.

A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available in our third quarter 2026 earnings release and our supplemental information. One additional point on the basis of comparisons made in our materials issued today and on this call, we will refer to our results on a same-park basis, which excludes the 7 parks sold on April 6, 2026, and the Park in Boe, Maryland that closed after the 2025 season from all periods presented.

Unless we say otherwise, year-over-year comparisons today are on that same park basis. Joining me today are John Reilly, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Ash Walia, Chief Financial Officer, who will take you through our prepared remarks. We will then open the call to questions. With that, I will turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. Before we discuss the quarter, let me start by acknowledging recent events. On October 12, Hasan Kareem tragedy lost his life while visiting Six Flags over Georgia. On behalf of every one in 6 Six Flags, I extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Our thoughts are also with those who are injured and everyone affected, including our team members. This tragic incident, together with our decision to retire the X2 roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain, has raised understandable questions. Those questions is there clear answers.

Nothing is more important to this company or to me than the safety of our guests and of our team members. Safety is the most fundamental commitment we make. And to that end, every ride we operate is inspected daily before opening and maintain to comply with our internal and regulatory requirements, so that we meet or exceed industry safety guidelines.

Here is what we know today and what we are doing. First, local authorities in the ride manufacturer are investigating what happened in Georgia. We are assisting fully in conducting our own internal review. We cannot comment further until that investigation is complete.

Second, we have launched a comprehensive safety review of our entire ride portfolio, led by Mark Pauls, our Chief Operating Officer, supported and verified by independent third-party engineering and inspection specialists. We will provide further updates as appropriate.

Confidence isn't restored with a statement. It is earned through action, and our leadership team is committed to earning it. Every guest and team member deserves to feel safe in our parks, and that is the standard we hold ourselves to at every park, every day.

Now let me turn to the business through 3 lenses: our team, our strategy and the results we are delivering. Having spent most of my career leading and operating many parks and resorts across many countries, when at the opportunity to come to Six Flag late last year, I saw this as the greatest opportunity imaginable in this industry.

Great brands and amazing parks with real scale and high barriers to entry. I also knew many of the people who worked in these parks. They are dedicated results-oriented people who know this business. Yes, the company was underperforming but I could also see the potential of what it could be.

After 11 months, this company is further along than it was a year ago, and the numbers show it. Through 9 months, adjusted EBITDA is up nearly 11%. Margin is up about 200 basis points and free cash flow has improved by about $300 million. I am more convinced now than ever of this company's potential.

On our last call, we shared our operating priorities with you. With the season now mostly behind us, we have a fuller picture of how our parks are performing and where the opportunities lie.

We are executing a strategy that we believe will drive this company to reach its potential. And while still, we are already seeing the results that Telesis strategy is working and this team is headed in the right direction. It all starts with the brand, and our brand research consistently comes back strong.

Awareness of 6 lines is 96%. And in nearly every market where we operate, we are the #1 name in our category. The research also tells us that our stand-alone park brands, together with some attribution to the fix-line name are stronger together than either one alone.

Great brands still need great operators. We put experienced park presidents back in charge of our largest parks with clear ownership of the guest experience labor, ride up time and the park level P&L. We are bringing back decision-making authority in an entrepreneurial spirit to the parks. I am confident from my years in this business that it will pay off. centrally, we have the right leaders to scale our resources, build centers of excellence and support the parks as they grow.

Mark Hall, who joined as Chief Operating Officer in July has visited most of our parks and is leading a part-by-part review of uptime maintenance, staffing and operating procedures.

Amy Martin Zingenfus, our Chief Marketing Officer, is sharpening how we win and keep guests cutting back. Chris Myring, our SVP Commercial is leading our pricing and revenue management work to optimize our opportunities. And DASH has brought the investment and cost discipline he will walk you through shortly.

Our teams in the park and our park support center know how to lead through good plans and challenging ones. Progress will not always be a straight line, but we're building this team the right way. Doing right by our guests and team members and delivering value for shareholders are not competing goals, we will do both.

Let me turn from who we are to what we are doing. It starts with the 4 priorities we laid out on our last call. Park level accountability, a better guest experience, stronger commercial capabilities, disciplined capital allocation. We have made steady progress getting the basics right.

Building on them is the next phase, and that is where our strategy comes in. Our ambition is to build the premier regional parks entertainment platform, connected networks of parts that deliver experiences guests love to share and a loyal recurring member and pass holder base that creates sustainable value for our shareholders.

We are focused on 5 key elements that drive it, and I'll give you a proof point for each. First, build fun experiences that gets love, talk about and share. It starts with rides that are safe and run when guests expect them. Ride availability is the biggest driver of how guests feel about their day, and it's improving.

In the third quarter, write-up time was 90.3%, up from 89.4% last year. Guests are also riding more with rides per guest up nearly 3%. Around the rides, we are improving attractions, events, comfort and service. because happy guests return and bring new ones.

More of our growth spending is going exactly there; two, expand the pass holder network and base. The base is growing. At the end of September, our asset pace was up about 7% versus the same date last year.

And pack holders and members made up about 61% of our attendance in the quarter. Our regional passes and memberships are doing what we've built them to do. Guests are traveling further and expanding our catchment areas, visiting more than one park. Cross park visits are running about 5x last year's love. That is the network working, and we are just getting started.

Brands that have never been available together on one pass, but being comparable combination of not BerryParm and Fixing Mountain in -- great Los Angeles are now available together in the same regional markets. We see an opportunity to lean in based on our success this year, including with paid marketing support; three, optimize the portfolio through a disciplined investment strategy.

Our parts do not all play the same role or contribute to growth at the same level. So we do not invest in them in the same way. Every park has a plan built around its own market and its own growth opportunity. where a park is strong, we build on it. Where there is more room to grow, we start by getting the fundamentals right.

We put our capital to its best and highest use and safety and maintenance come first. We carry more debt than we want and bringing it down as a priority.

Optimizing the portfolio is how we will get there. We are actively reviewing our parks in real estate, including potential sales of noncore assets, to unlock value, reduce debt and enhance liquidity.

That also keeps us investing in the parts that drive our business. The 7 noncore parts we sold this year show how we think about it. We act when the value is right. Every dollar has to help us get there as we build for our future.

Four, execute with excellence. That means marketing to find the right guest at the right time, pricing that reflects the value we provide and operations that run with consistency from park to park. We are adding new capabilities behind strengthening our marketing and pricing and that work is well underway.

Over time, our guests will see more personal, better targeted messaging and a stronger connection with us. It also opens up new ways to sell.

Five, build a performance culture. Our Park leaders own their results. They make decisions closer to the guests, and they carry the accountability that comes with it. We are also making this company faster and simpler.

Centrally, some decisions look longer than they should have with too many layers between the people closest to the guests and the people making the call. Consolidating our corporate offices is one example. Fewer layers means faster decisions, more accountability, and more local ownership. Shared services gives the part of the strength of scale they could never build alone.

We are seeing early results. Taken all together, these 5 strategic pillars are intended to drive the outcomes that matter. Recurring revenue, a growing and more loyal pass holder base, higher guest lifetime value margin expansion, stronger free cash flow and lower leverage.

Our long-term goals are adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30s and net leverage of about 4x. How are we doing? The evidence is early, but is moving in the right direction. Start with the quarter. Third quarter is our biggest of the year, but it was not the easiest.

The later Labor Day gave us more operating days but a less favorable July 4th calendar and wildfire smoke at a handful of parks took much of that back. Even so, on a same-park basis, net revenues grew 1.4% and to $1.17 billion, adjusted EBITDA grew 1.1% to $493 million, and we held our margin at 42%. Per capita spending rose and paid attendance grew as we issued fewer complementary tickets. Progress rarely shows up in a straight line, and the start of the fourth quarter tested us.

October is the most important month of the quarter, and it was softer than we planned. Weather hit several of our biggest early October weekends and events and the ride closures that followed the incident in Georgia landed in the same weeks.

Through 9 months, we've seen real proof points that our strategy is taking hold, including an increased pass base, materially higher crop park visitation fuels our gold path and the new brand combinations available to each region, an increase in adjusted EBITDA and margin expansion. That's momentum that reinforces confidence we're on the right track, and we intend to build on it.

That is our strategy and where we're headed, and we're energized by what's ahead. As will take you through the financial details, including our outlook for the fourth quarter. I'll be back at the end with some closing comments. With that, I'll hand the call over to Ash.

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Before I walk through the numbers, I want to give you 3 takeaways upfront because they frame everything else, I will say this morning. First, we delivered a solid third quarter in our largest and most important quarter of the year, on a same-park basis, we grew both revenue and adjusted EBITDA and held our margin at 42% even with a less favorable July 4 calendar and with weather and [indiscernible] weighing on several of our parks during peak season.

Second, our year-to-date results show improving profitability and cash flow versus prior year. Through the first 9 months on a same-park basis, adjusted EBITDA is up about 11%, and our margin has expanded by about 200 basis points.

As a result, for the 9 months, our cash flow from operations less CapEx is $257 million, a $300 million improvement from the same period last year. Third, we have the balance sheet flexibility to meet our commitments and continue investing in the business.

That takes into account our fourth quarter outlook and the seasonality of our business through the winter and early spring when liquidity is at its lowest. We ended the quarter with more than $1 billion of liquidity and an improvement of $298 million versus this time last year, with nothing drawn on our revolver.

We believe that gives us ample capacity to meet our obligations, including to fund the full Six Flags over Georgia purchase, if needed in January. Now let me walk through the details, starting with our reported results. Third quarter net revenues were $1.17 billion.

Net loss was $366 million or $3.59 per diluted share, which includes noncash impairment charge of $688 million related to goodwill, trade names and long-lived assets. The details will be included in our quarterly 10-Q filing.

The charges do not affect our cash position and are excluded from our same-park adjusted EBITDA. Unless otherwise noted, the majority of my comments from here on will be on a same-park basis, which excludes the park we sold during the second quarter and our buoy park that closed after the 2025 season.

Please keep that in mind as I referenced year-over-year changes throughout my remarks. Further, I'd point out that our earnings release also has the reported results and reconciliation to the same park results as well as a detail of quarterly historical same part results and drivers to assist you in your modeling.

Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $493.2 million, up $5.4 million or 1.1% as we held our margin at 42%, down 13 basis points versus last year. The quality of our attendance improved as we issued fewer complementary tickets. Total attendance was $18.2 million, essentially flat with last year.

The later Labor Day help this quarter, while weather in the Northeast and Midwest plus wildfire scope as several parks weighed on peak weeks during the quarter. Our guests also spend more per visit. Per capita spending rose about 1.3% to $6.51 with increases in both admissions and in-park spending.

Key drivers included higher merchandise spending and spending on premium offerings such as [indiscernible] On the cost side, our savings kept pace with inflation which is what protected our margins. In the third quarter, we delivered about $13 million of savings, mainly from full-time seasonal labor, at operating costs and procurement.

That fully offset about $30 million of cost pressures from wages, insurance and other inflation. We did this while operating 54 more days than last year, mainly from the shift in Labor Day. Zooming out to the first 9 months, the improvement in our profitability and margin is clear. Revenue grew about $62 million. Adjusted EBITDA also grew about $62 million or 11% to $639.5 million.

Essentially, every dollar of our revenue growth reached the bottom line, and our margin expanded about 200 basis points from 26.3% to 28.3%. On a trailing 12-month basis, adjusted EBITDA rose to $806 million. Cost savings have been a major driver Year-to-date, we have delivered about $63 million of gross savings or about $36 million net of cost pressures, and we are on track for $70 million to $80 million of gross savings for the full year or $36 million to $46 million net.

These savings are not a onetime benefit. They are a part of how we run the business every day, and we are building a pipeline of savings for the years ahead. so that more of the revenue growth, which is the bottom line.

That keeps us on path to achieve adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30s over time. Just as important, our earnings are converting into cash flow. On a reported basis, through the first 9 months, operating cash flow was $498 million, up $133 million from last year, reflecting stronger business performance as the remaining park and favorable working capital.

Capital spending was $241 million compared to $408 million last year, and free cash flow was $257 million. This marks an improvement in free cash flow of about $300 million through the first 9 months compared to last year.

These figures are as reported so last year and the first month of this year include the parks we no longer operate. The reduction in CapEx reflects a more rigorous approach to capital allocation, not a change in our growth strategy.

After funding infrastructure, including maintenance, every project now competes for funding on its expected return on invested capital, and we have resequenced our pipeline so that the highest return investments come first.

The projects we've moved haven't been abandoned. They remain in our long-range plan and will be reevaluated against the same return thresholds in future years. As you will observe, when you visit our parks, a growing share of our growth capital is going towards guest experience investments, which we believe offer attractive returns and support our strategy to rebuild attendance.

We don't expect to see sequencing to change our path to adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30s over time. On the contrary, our sharpened focus around capital allocation strengthens free cash flow and liquidity. The cash generation has strengthened our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $1.06 billion of liquidity, up $223 million from $837 million at the end of second quarter.

That is comprised of $268 million of cash and revolver available. This represents an improvement of $298 million in our liquidity compared to the same time last year. We are also delevering. We have reduced debt by $275 million this year. Net debt fell by about $200 million in the quarter to approximately $4.7 billion, and the net leverage improved to 5.8x from 6.1x based on a trailing 12-month same part adjusted EBITDA.

About 70% of the debt is fixed rate, and we have no immediate maturities. We remain focused on reducing net leverage, targeting a goal of about 4x. We expect any proceeds from asset sales will go to paying down debt. On insurance, the higher cost to the third quarter reflects the structure of our insurance program our claims experience and our actuarial estimate of claims that have occurred but not yet been reported, all related to the period before the incident in October.

We self-insure claims up to a certain retention level Beyond that, we have $100 million of comprehensive general liability coverage applies above that. Based on that coverage and what we know today, we do not expect any claim payments to have a material impact on the liquidity.

That brings me to the Six Flags over Georgia. We own about 1/3 of the partnership units. And in January, we may buy the remaining units under the end-of-term option we exercised in December 2024. The amount table should every partner choose to be paid out would be approximately $370 million set up by a formula in the partnership agreement.

However, we are in active dialogue with the unitholders and some partners may elect to roll over their units and defer the payment, which will reduce our cash requirements. We will update you when we have more information on any such rollover.

Today, we pay about $26 million a year in distributions to the Georgia partners. Once we own their units, those distributions end. At the current rate, interest on the revolver borrowing would be about $21 million a year while giving us the full ownership of Park.

Our priority is to reduce leverage. As we optimize the portfolio, proceeds from the asset sales that don't fit our strategy, will be directed primarily to paying down debt. Our future planning shows adequate liquidity through next year's seasonal low point without any incremental debt, except for revolver borrowings under our credit facility.

Turning to the fourth quarter. As John mentioned, October was softer than we planned with attendance down 9% versus last year. About half of that came from unfavorable weather on several of our most important weekends earlier in the month, including from Hurricane [indiscernible] and the other half from the impact of the incident at Six Flags over Georgia and the related right closures.

Encouragingly, in the last week of October, we saw year-over-year growth, excluding directly impacted parks. Last year's fourth quarter same part adjusted EBITDA was $166.9 million, and we now expect to generate approximately $140 million to $150 million in the fourth quarter this year.

The vast majority of the difference compared to the year ago period reflects the month of October. While we are working hard to limit this impact, I think it's important to put into perspective as the difference only represents about 3% of our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA. And even with the fourth quarter headwinds, we are expecting the same part adjusted EBITDA to grow for the full year compared with last year.

October typically brings in 60% to 65% of our fourth quarter revenue, leaving the remainder to be earned in November and December. We expect about 60 more operating days in the quarter compared to last year, mainly from the holiday in park events.

For modeling purposes, those holiday operating days draw lower attendance than operating days in October. However, they are very accretive days from a cash flow perspective. Our parks remained open throughout October and for the full year, we expect approximately 4,868 operating days more than 2025. To be clear, we see this shortfall as temporary in nature.

It reflects events specific to this October. Not a change in the underlying demand for our parts or in the long-term earning power of the business.

We are already responding to marketing, pricing and product offers and nothing we saw in October changed our operating plan for 2027 or our long-term emissions to drive an expansion in markets.

To sum up, I want to reiterate the 3 messages I started with. First, the third quarter was a good quarter. We grew revenue and adjusted EBITDA, held our margin at 42%, group paid attendance and increased per capita spending despite challenging weather in several of our key markets.

Second, our year-to-date results show a stronger business compared to last year. Adjusted EBITDA is up by 11%. Our margin is up by about 200 basis points.

We have generated $257 million of free cash flow, and we are on track for $70 million to $80 million of gross cost savings this year, and we expect to grow the same park adjusted EBITDA for the full year.

Third, we have ample liquidity to buy the remaining units of Georgia partnership. We ended the quarter with $1.06 billion of liquidity we expect to end the year with sufficient liquidity to fund the payment in full if needed. With that, I'll turn it back to John for closing comments.

Thanks, Ash. What gives me confidence is what I see across our parks. Roughly 95,000 full-time and seasonal team members who show up every day with passion to create fun, thrills and lifetime memories for our guests.

We know confidence is earned, and we intend to keep earning it quarter by quarter. Thank you to our teams, and thank you for your support. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski with Stifel.

So John or Ash, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but to me, it sounds like you're more open to potentially selling or shutting down additional parks versus where your commentary was, let's call it, 3 months ago.

Am I thinking about that the right way? And if I am, wondering what maybe you guys what made you change your mind on your thought process versus just a couple of months ago. And if we think about lowering your park base, I mean, do you guys actually have a number in mind that you want to get to, meaning parts goes down to X or Y or what that number could look like?

Steve, it's John. I'll take that. So when we commented on this last -- at the last call, the response was that we didn't have anything underway for the operating season, and that really was a question of the timing and where we were in the season and our real focus on execution delivering for our expanded pass base and continuing to push the expansion of our passive membership base.

We're happy with that result. That said, we do believe there's opportunity for further portfolio optimization. And now that the bulk of the season has passed those discussions are underway. And we're not going to quantify that in terms of a number of parks.

What I can tell you is we've done a lot of work to strategize, categorize our parks in terms of values to our strategies going forward, things like expanding the task base and regional membership, which parks are in the most critical networks.

We're also looking at accretion or improvement to our leverage ratio where would that have the biggest impact. So it's 1 of the many measures we're taking to strengthen the company, we'll give you more specifics as we go forward. .

Okay. Got you. And then if we think about the long-term goal of getting margins into the mid-30s, wondering what long-term maybe means to you? Just trying to understand how long that might take?

And then maybe also help us think about some of the drivers of what's going to improve that margin improvement going forward?

Yes, Steve, thanks. So we're pleased with our progress thus far this year. We have some green shoots, and we have about 200 basis points in improvement -- the way we think about that, we're not going to guide today in terms of a year target. And as we go forward, we'll try to provide more color on these.

But what I would say is -- we expect we can get about halfway there on cost work. I mean, Ash mentioned in his earlier comments that we had around $70 million in cost savings, offset by some inflation and other factors. We're pleased with our early progress, and we're building an organization that can more reliably deliver that every year, I think, as he alluded.

But the way we see it is we can get about halfway there on cost base and then the improvement in the revenue, this business scales up very well. The improvement in the revenue should get us the rest of the way there.

Your next question comes from the line of David Katz with Jefferies.

I wanted to just get your latest thoughts on the increase in pass base right? Presumably with single-day visitation moving down, how do you look at the balance of the equilibrium between those and the dynamics that it implies for per caps, for visibility, obviously, all of the different parts to it.

Obviously, we've seen that dynamic elsewhere in our coverage and what it implies for the long term. So I'd love some a little more depth of thoughts on that.

Yes. Thanks, David. This is John. I'll take that. So in terms of the sort of increase in pass and membership base and potential impact on share of total tickets. This is the way we look at it. First, we're here to maximize total revenue.

And so we may, as we trade some people up, lower the per visit per cap but we're happy to take the extra visits and the higher total revenue, increasing the total value per guest. We're working on this in 2 different ways, and we've strengthened our marketing and our commercial engines within the company.

The structure of the products, the trade-up, which we're seeing tremendous results, the regional visitation is something that our commercial team is driving deliberately, along with the marketing team, and we're seeing results.

But what I will say is our marketing team has also made a lot of progress in the last month on our marketing technology infrastructure that's going to allow us to market in a more targeted way, a more personal way with personas and different guests that we haven't messaged to before.

So we think we can do both. Over time, we think we can grow single day. And over time, we can grow past through the capabilities that we're building in marketing. But what I -- and we have traded a few points from single-day tickets, about 3 points to pass the membership.

But we feel good about the trade-off overall because it's growing total revenue, and we feel good that our marketing and commercial engines are going to be able to manage this as we go forward.

Right. And as my follow-up, this may be for Ash. There's been such a dynamic debate over CapEx levels across the company, obviously, that predates you all. How do you feel about the sustainability of your maintenance CapEx levels so far? And how do we think about a total CapEx budget from a long-term perspective? I can recall us modeling like a 9%, 10% level.

Is that what you think is required in this business on an ongoing basis?

Yes. Thank you. One of the things that I shared in our prepared remarks was our very rigorous approach to capital allocation. So we have multiple projects that we look and evaluate and we try to prioritize them based on the return that they're going to deliver to us.

And then what I said is that all the projects that are not passing that hurdle are put back into the pipeline to compete in the next year. When I look at CapEx, the CapEx is in 2 components. One is our growth CapEx, and the other one is our infrastructure CapEx. The infrastructure CapEx includes things like maintenance, safety, security, that's part of the infrastructure piece.

That usually ranges between 20% to 30% of our total CapEx. It depends on timing. It also depends on the mix of the growth and we continue to look at it. We'll continue to refine on it. But right now, where we are and how we see the levels that we have, we are pleased with the levels of capital that we are able to invest in the business between growth and between infrastructure. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Arpine Kocharyan with UBS.

I apologize hopping between calls today, so it's very possible you have already addressed this but I was hoping you could dissect the past program trends a little bit more. It seems like there are some there were some definitional changes in the press release. You're now signing past member sales plus a sales plus member sales.

Specifically, that 2.5% increase you are seeing right now in past program plus members. How has that pace through October? I guess what I'm really trying to get to is how much of the Georgia incident might have impacted your past sales in October and kind of trying to get to readthroughs for 2027 or 2027 impact from this sort of foregone sales, if you want to follow it that way.

In, this is John. I'll take that. So in our past program, there is in our past base, it's a past and membership base and it's an active base at any moment in time during the year, and it fluctuates based on people moving in and out of membership or potentially certain passes expiring. .

So we added membership to about 8 parks that had never had membership at the beginning of the summer. And now we have a higher membership base. So that is one impact. The second thing that we did is we intentionally launched the 2027 pass program later than we did in last year.

And that was to avoid what we call skip level behavior where people are getting 15 years of a pass on a one-season purchase. So the combination of membership and an intentional delay in the launch in the summer by a couple of weeks, has lowered the base of 2027 sales as we go in.

We expect that to be even maybe slightly up as we get to the new year in terms of the passive membership base. So that's the dynamic there, and there's an intentional skip level delay so that we can yield more out of those passes going forward.

As far as Georgia and trying to model any impacts from there. Well, first our main focus here is on the investigation and on safety, of course.

But what I would say, if you want to talk about the business performance with Georgia, is that if you go back to what we commented on in the script, these are resilient brands, strong brands and all of our research says both the like brands and the Park brands are strong.

We've gone back and studied incidents in the industry, and it's very difficult to make a prediction. But as far as the performance in Georgia, these things are typically not a matter of years and more a matter of months as we do all the right things.

So I don't have anything to quantify that for you. What I can say is the result any impact from that seems to be limited to Georgia and potentially Magic Mountain because we have the X2 matter as well and then some isolated impacts on the parks that have temporary closures due to the rise out of commission for a period of time right now.

But we don't see anything beyond that. And as we move forward, we'll share with you.

That's very, very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up, and thank you for clarifying the liquidity situation in your release. I think that's very helpful. But I was wondering if you could talk or maybe walk us through a bit more on both Georgia payment as well as -- and this is going to be a lot more forward-looking than you're probably ready to look right now, but sort of your 2028, 2029 maturities, given sort of higher cost of capital today.

But mostly, I'm interested in how you're thinking about the balance sheet more medium term beyond just the next quarter. But of course, as we think about next quarter and the Georgia payment, that's probably the more relevant question near term.

Yes. So thank you. This is Ash, and I'll take that question. So we've internally modeled our liquidity scenario, knowing the variables that we know today and assuming that we will have to fund Georgia fully. Based on that analysis and based on knowing what the Q1 2026 burn was, we believe we have sufficient liquidity available to us to continue to invest in the business and operate the business. .

That analysis that I talked about, scenario analysis that we prepared does not include any benefits from what John talked about on portfolio optimization. So that would be incremental. We also have if needed.

We also have the level of looking at the growth CapEx and making a refinement on the timing. So we have some flexibility there if needed again. And then obviously, the fact is that we are in active discussion with the partners, and we'll share in terms of what the outcome is and how many partners might want to stay and roll over because that will help reducing our cash flow -- that is not included in the analysis.

The analysis in fuel said everything is fully funded, and we have sufficient liquidity to run the business both from a investment perspective and operations.

Your next question comes from the line of James Hardiman with Citi.

So obviously, way too early to have guidance with respect to 2027. I don't know if you will ever give guidance on 2027. But I'm sure going fishing here a little bit, but maybe anything that you feel like you have visibility on as we look to 2027, whether it's attendance or admissions pricing, import pricing, labor costs.

Weather is always going to be a big swing factor. I don't know if you feel like on balance, 2026 was bad weather year that creates an easier comparison. Obviously, you've had some success setting cost sort of how we should think about sort of incremental run rate savings into 2027.

Again, I'm sort of fishing here, but anything you can give us to help us think through 2027 would be great. So this is Ash and I can start off with the cost piece first. And in terms of the business principle that we've been using from a cost perspective is that cost savings should be such that they offset inflationary pressures and then deliver some to the bottom line.

A lot of work has done within the organization to be able to trace track and report cost savings and also face track and report on the inflationary pressures and the investments we want to make into the business such that the cost savings delivered and slow down after offsetting inflation to the bottom line.

And that will be the growing in approach. While we do this, it's not a onetime effort. It's ongoing, every cost that comes on the table, we turn it and we try to look for opportunities in terms of how we can improve those costs.

We have a view in terms of what the future pipeline would look like, and we are working on that pipeline for 2027 and beyond.

I'll just maybe add, James, in terms of the weather, we don't view it as a positive weather here. We mentioned the wildfire impact other things we had during the summer. But we also don't want to dwell on that because we believe we have enough opportunities with the strategies and priorities we've laid out to move the needle significantly on our own.

And so the one thing I might add to Ash and to add a little bit to our first discussion around the shift in pass and membership in per cap. We do -- we have identified some great opportunities for next year or 2 in terms of fast lane. It's a big business for us.

And we have some pricing opportunities there. We've taken pricing opportunities and reconstituted our dining plans, which are a significant business for us going into next year. So I won't go into all the details but we are working on opportunities to grow the business and weather for us is a uncontrollable. So we'll control the controllables.

Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe as a follow-up to Steve's question up top about portfolio optimization. Basically, if we go back to the last year's sales -- or I guess, this year sales sorry, the EPR sale.

Obviously, you were able to generate cash, but you lost a certain amount of EBITDA generation. And so the net impact on leverage was pretty minimal. But I think if I'm hearing what you're saying correctly, maybe you think that leverage can be meaningful as a result of continued portfolio optimization from here again, similar to how you've laid it out.

I don't know if I'm reading too much into sort of what you've said so far? Or is there an opportunity to sort of assist the balance sheet and the leverage as a result of continued optimization.

So we look at this 2 ways, James. And you look at the silver parks that we sold earlier this year, yes, they did help us with the cash. And the leverage ratio, although it didn't necessarily lower our leverage ratio, we sold some smaller parks that weren't a major focus for us. at a multiple that was similar to where the portfolio was trading.

So that gives us strategic focus from the management team, resources, capital allocation to redirect to the bigger parks. That's an important step for us. and we're open to similar sales like that going forward.

But secondly, because in some smaller parks in the portfolio, we were able to get approximately a similar multiple. If you look at all the parks in our portfolio, they're not -- they wouldn't all sell at the same multiple.

So there's an opportunity to do more potentially on the leverage ratio. But again, this is something we're exploring. We don't have anything to announce today.

And if I may, I'd just add to what John has said. Portfolio optimization is one lever. The other thing we have to also keep in mind that we are going to focus on continuing to grow our attendance in the business and hold the middle of the P&L between cost savings and inflationary pressures that we see.

So that the EBITDA also improves, that will also help drive an improvement in leverage. So it's multiple levers that we have that we have to deploy [indiscernible]

Your next question comes from the line of Brandt Montour with Barclays.

Okay. Great. So the first question is circling back on the commentary on October, I was hoping you could be a little bit more specific when you said that you saw visitation growth in the last week of October, directly impacted parts. When you say directly impacted parts, are those Georgia and Madison?

Are those all parks with Rider we shut down? Are those sort of all like branded products sort of give us a sense of what proportion of the portfolio was able to grow towards the end of October.

Yes. I think without going into all the individual parks, we saw some softness in Georgia. And if you look at the incident and the ride-related closures, that was about half of it. And as I mentioned, that's primarily Georgia and Magic Mountain. And then there are some parts that because of the incident, they had 1 or 2 very signature rides closed and that had some impact some temporary impact.

That was not all the parts with ride closures. So if you look at that, that's around half -- and then we have the name storm that we mentioned in the other factors there. So towards the end of the month, we did see improvement. We saw improvement in different regions.

There's not a pattern to the improvement that we saw in terms of performance with parks that are branded Six Flags or not. So beyond what we've already discussed, we don't see an impact on the other 6 Flags branded parks.

Okay. That's helpful. And then just circling back on the last discussion. Can you guys just give us an update on the Maryland and enrichment asset sales specifically?

Yes. The Maryland asset sale is still targeted for late 2027. The buyer is going through an entitlement process to move towards finalization of the sale. So that hasn't changed. And then in terms of Richmond, we have move forward in the process to it and are in a process to evaluate bids, we don't have anything more to say beyond that. .

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Schulz with Truist Securities.

When I look at the slide on paths and memberships with the active -- active pass base of 7.1% as of September '27, but then expected to be flat to slightly up. That would imply, obviously, a sizable deceleration happened in the -- probably for obvious reasons in October.

What was your season pass sales pace in October that would lead to that lower expectation.

Yes. I would go back to some of the intentional decisions we made in terms of skip level behavior and a later launch, that is a big impact in July in terms of the numbers sold because for 2 weeks, we weren't selling the next year's past. The other impact is that we have more people in membership and those are rolling over the calendar period. We're not going to comment on October.

What I would say for October is we mentioned the month was softer. The pass base was -- in terms of the past sales pace, it was lower as well. And we do have a number of measures quarter to go that we believe are going to give us an opportunity for improvement there. .

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank.

All details so far. John, I think reduction in CapEx is certainly a discretionary CapEx is certainly positive. But the question on that is do the parks look different next year in terms of some of that kind of hard dollar CapEx meeting going over to OpEx in terms of -- you referenced experiences, is that going to potentially include things like we're live entertainment and other things that maybe make the parks look different each week. .

We are looking at expanded events and entertainment, and that will be part of the slate going forward. We have a number of focus parks as part of how we optimize the portfolio and how we ask them, optimize the capital allocation and the expense allocation.

Magic Mountain, for example, is going to be undergoing a major refurbishment that's all contemplated in the numbers that I shared with you, and that's contemplated within our savings plan. Additionally, in New Jersey, Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags Great America and Chicago.

We have similar programs underway, making the parks more friendly, providing more comfort shade amenities, but that's all contemplated within the plan. There may be some expansion in entertainment operating expenses. We did that this year, and we'll do it as it makes sense.

Okay. Very helpful. And then I guess just as a follow-up, I don't know if you guys gave out any data points on this or how you look at it. But do you think you still have room on peak attendance days or weekends. I think -- and you see the opportunity going forward when you talk about rebuilding attendance.

Do you think that comes more in kind of the some of the shoulder days, I guess, you might call them? Or do you think that there's still a lot of room on some of these peak weekends and holidays. And I guess I would kind of strip out weather and just kind of look at it on a clean weather basis, if that's possible.

Yes. What I would say is there's a lot of excess capacity in these parks. And we're not bumping up on closures or anything like that as we operate. Certainly, Halloween is busier. In terms of when during the year that we have opportunities, we'll use our event strategy going forward to help build upon building parts of the year where we have opportunities.

If you look at Boysenberry the food and beverage event and [indiscernible] It's hugely successful. We don't have similar events in the other parks. We can deploy those at times of year when we have a lot of excess capacity or an opportunity. But that said, we've got opportunity throughout the calendar year.

Even in Halloween, we can open earlier or we can stay open later. We can move into September. So there's opportunity throughout the calendar.

We have reached the end of our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to John for closing remarks. .

Thank you. We appreciate you joining us this morning. We're energized by the opportunity ahead and grateful to our team members across all of the parks. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Hello, and welcome to Six Flags Entertainment Corporation 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. Please note that this call is being recorded.

[Operator Instructions] 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 Reilly, 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 4% despite 44 fewer operating days in the second quarter. Net revenues increased more than 2%, adjusted EBITDA increased 7% and our active pass base grew 6% entering the peak summer season. Looking beyond that quarter and excluding the 7 parks sold in the portfolio transaction and the park we closed following the 2025 operating season, first half adjusted EBITDA increased approximately 63% or $56 million, and trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA totaled $801 million 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 passholder, 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 remain strong. Importantly, both our single day and our combined season pass and membership products yielded higher average prices. In June, we expanded our membership offering to 6 additional parks. Cross-park visitation also continued to grow as guests use 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 pass holder visits approximately 4 times per year, creating multiple opportunities to purchase food and beverages, merchandise, games, parking and premium experiences. As attendance shifts toward pass holders, 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 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 per guest, 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 multiyear plans responsibly address guest amenities and comfort. This year's lineup includes Tormenta Rampaging Run at Six Flags Over Texas, Phantom Theater at Kings 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 7 smaller noncore 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 8 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-park 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 park teams managed strong cost discipline, allowing us to retain a meaningful portion of the quarter's incremental revenue. As a result, second quarter same-park 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 used 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 7 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 2 headwinds at the start of the third quarter, the unfavorable July 4 calendar shift 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 5 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 planned 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 7, 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 base, broader membership availability, more targeted marketing and continued work on ride up time 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 2 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 Roarin Falls at Carowinds 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 9 attractions and experiences, making it one of the largest family-focused investment 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 4x. 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 the 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.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski of Stifel.

So John, I want to start with -- you gave some high-level thoughts around July. And it looks like you were 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 from a like-for-like basis, either -- whether that's from an attendance basis or from a revenue basis? Just trying to get a sense for how we should be starting the third quarter off.

Steve, 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 4th fell on a Saturday, which does affect some people who like to bridge a holiday into a longer period versus prior year where it was on a Friday. And then we had some disruption from wildfire quality -- air quality issues really across the Great Lakes and from Toronto down to Virginia over various periods of time and even caused some park closures for air quality.

What encouraged us in July is as we moved through the month is one of the points that we made earlier, is that we had a day where our cumulative attendance total was the best we've seen in 5 years. So we're seeing demand come back when we have positive conditions, and that's our expectation for the business over time. And again, where we are in attendance year-to-date, where we are on our pass base, gives us positive indications as we go forward. When you look at the 6% pass and membership base 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 higher per cap programs, and they have -- more importantly, almost they have higher renewal rates. And we'll have more and more guests renewing over the back 2 quarters than we had last year. So that's another positive factor. We have an extra week of summer essentially with Labor Day, and that's driving -- along with the new holidays in December, that's driving the additional operating days that we referenced, Steve.

And then the other thing that I would mention that we're really encouraged by is Halloween. We just went through some of the factors on it. In about 2 weeks, we're going to be announcing some of the IPs that we're expanding to, including 4 pretty new and exciting ones. When you look at the scope of what we have in Halloween, no one is 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.

So when you take that all into effect, we expect to grow in Q3 and Q4 and in the back half of the year. The opportunities with Halloween and Holiday in the Parks probably provide the greatest opportunity for Q4 relative to Q3.

Okay. Got you. That's good color, John. And then second question, I don't know if this is for you or for Ash, but I just want to ask about the opportunity to now deleverage 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 breakeven 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 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 we -- 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 the $400 million to $425 million range. But over time, we still feel good about getting the net leverage down to where it should be.

Your next question comes from the line of James Hardiman of Citi.

So just as a point of clarification, Steve had asked about sort of July. 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'd 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.

Got it. That makes sense. And then this is sort of a modeling question. I don't know how well this is going to go on a earnings call because it's a little bit of minutiae. But 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. 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 had given us 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 refer you back to the table that you all can find in the Q1 earnings report, where we gave the balance of the year by quarter, the attendance impact for the specified parks versus the consolidated company number. And so in Q4, the numbers are there for attendance and revenue of what we modeled. And then in Q3 and -- I'm sorry, in Q2. And in Q3 and Q4, it's about $66 million EBITDA impact for the balance of the year. But we'd refer everybody back to that table.

Okay. I will follow-up on that one.

Your next question comes from the line of Lizzie Dove of Goldman Sachs.

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 the margins were up about 50 basis points year-on-year, but off of a base when they were maybe kind of down over 600 basis points last quarter when you'd obviously had some challenges in both revenue and costs. And so 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 increase some of the cost savings and the margin power from here?

Yes. 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, through the quarter as we've had for half 1. But we're in the early stages on this. And we believe we have considerable growth. 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 team members that have just joined us. I mean, Ash first in finance has extensive supply chain experience and Ash is already starting to make an impact, but he's just arrived. And then Mark Pauls 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 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 mid-30s, as we've said.

Great. Makes sense. And then just on the per cap side of things. So I appreciate Q4 and Q1 aren't super indicative quarters given it's lower volume, but it does seem like a bit of a reversal from the growth we've seen in 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 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 we should expect to kind of continue from here?

Sure. And good question. And if you remember, for the Q4 of 2025, and I believe for Q1 of 2026 we mentioned that there was a bit outsized per cap growth and that we wouldn't extrapolate that for the full year. And when you look at Q2, this is an intentional strategy that we've been talking about to grow our passive 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-park. 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 sold to the parks. That category also increased on an average price basis versus the same period -- same-park basis Q2 2025.

So we feel good about our ability to continue to expand the pass and membership program. You may see mix effects as a result of that ticket mix 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 the 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.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka of Deutsche Bank.

John, I was hoping maybe you could talk a little bit about any efforts to kind of connect ancillary to pass sales on a presale basis. I know you've -- the cruise lines are famous for this, and you recently brought in some new leadership there and marketing. So I was hoping you can -- do you see an opportunity to maybe meaningfully increase the attachment of those -- of some ancillary revenue to the past sales on a presale basis.

Yes. Great question, and it is a deliberative strategy that we have in the company. One of the folks that's been promoted in our recent leadership initiatives across the company is Chris Myring, 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' leadership. One would be Fast Lane, 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 footfall.

And we -- 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. And I would say the early returns, because we did launch a few parks in the last week or 2, are that we're seeing a double-digit growth in attachment rate so far, but very early returns.

Okay. Super helpful. And then as a follow-up, I won't ask you for a specific number on '27 or beyond. But directionally, do you think you're possibly moving closer to a place where you trade some hard CapEx dollars for some soft CapEx dollars? And by that, I just mean kind of coasters versus like live entertainment that doesn't necessarily have a fixed hard cost to it. Is that something that's kind of on the table going forward as well?

Yes, it's a good question. And as we mentioned, we're launching our pass -- 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 Farm. 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 we believe events are a very efficient way to deploy capital as we go forward.

Your next question comes from the line of Ian Zaffino of Oppenheimer.

Just want to kind of look at the numbers here and kind of the comments that you're giving us and maybe give us your thoughts on the consumer and kind of the ability to maybe push price. I mean it seems like some of the pricing was up on an apples-to-apples 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 as it relates to kind of the strength of the consumer?

Thanks. So the -- 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 consumers to be responsive. 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 (sic) [ Fast Lane ] , our queuing programs, initiatives we have there. Our dining program has huge appeal to our visitors, and we expect that will continue and even expand with new flexible programs. We're launching new concepts in F&B, new refresher beverage concepts and other things that are getting good early returns. So we see when we do the right things, we're able to move the in-park spending per capita.

Okay. And then on the multipark pass, 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 company? And how do we think about this going forward as far as the maturation period of this because it was just introduced.

Yes. 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 pass sales went on a much stronger trajectory. And some of that we credit to better product architecture, better merchandising, better conversion rates on our website from people shopping to people buying. So there's a lot happening to drive it. But clearly, it coincided with the introduction of the multi-park visits on a regional basis. And we're seeing the usage of the pass 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 2 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 2. So we're in the early stages.

Halloween will also be a good read on that as we have -- 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.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Ben Chaiken of Mizuho.

It's Alok Patel on for Ben. Just if I'm not mistaken, the same-park attendance in 2Q '26 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 3Q '25 and 4Q '25 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. Yes. That's helpful. And then just a quick follow-up. How should we think about cash costs for the balance of the year? 2Q '25 had elevated marketing costs. You guys look like in 2Q were roughly flat on a same-park basis. Does that imply that 2H cash costs will be higher year-over-year?

I think you can expect modest growth in the cash costs over the balance of the year.

Your next question comes from the line of Arpine Kocharyan of UBS.

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 some of those higher-performing remaining parks should have better per cap spend. Could you comment why that spend on a per cap basis shouldn't grow nicely year-over-year, again, on same-park adjusted basis. I know on admission side of things, past product mix improvement can impact admissions per cap, the more successful pass 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.

Arpine, 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 a same-park basis. So it adjusts out for the parks that we sold. Would some of those -- would those parks likely have had a lower average potentially? Yes, a lower average per cap. But on the same-park basis, it should be comparable for you.

Yes. No, absolutely. I was just wondering why do you see that growing a little bit more than -- or maybe on go-forward basis, it shouldn't grow slightly better than -- given most of the parks sold were really sort of lower-margin parks.

Yes. I think one of the impacts there is mix of parks. So I would -- we had strong growth, for example, in Canada and Mexico, and that's where like park mix can affect the overall number.

Okay. Okay. And then I'm sorry, I'm hoping between calls today, so it's very possible you went through this in detail. I 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 was 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?

Those are the major factors, Arpine. 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 uptime, 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.

Your next question comes from the line of David Katz of Jefferies.

I know you've covered a lot already. I don't believe we've had any discussion about sort of the base of parks and whether there are sort of parks on the edge that continue to be reviewed and whether the divestiture concept is still something that's an ongoing process? Or should we look at the base as fairly set for the moment?

It's a good question. And for now, what I would say is that we don't expect any changes in our portfolio of parks this year. As I mentioned, we're launching our pass sales today. And 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 this may be an unusual question, but I think too often, we on Wall Street position companies, consumers either at one end of the K or the other end of the K, and it feels to be becoming more and more of a binary question. Where on that letter, K, do you sort of put your people? Or are they dispersed? And how would you have us think about your population of target consumers in that way?

Yes. 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 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.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Pace of JPMorgan.

So apologies if this stuff was gone over, also a busy morning here. But 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 weather just seemed better than plus 4% year-over-year. I know there was some early noise with spring break and Easter. And 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 did plus 4% meet your expectations? And then I have a quick couple of follow-ups.

Yes. Again, I -- we prefer to take 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. And -- 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, which a very high per cap, higher price 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 pass 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. We always want to do better than what we did, but we believe 4% and 6% on the past 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 I'm not sure who this one is for, but in the past, you had mentioned potential to sell some unused land. And I'm curious where that stands versus prior expectations on dollars and timing. Any thoughts there? And then just your prior commitment that any and all asset sale proceeds would be used to pay down debt. Can you reiterate that, if you can?

I'll start by reiterating the second part, which is important to everybody for the asset sales that it will be used to pay down debt, and we have the long-term goal of 4x. We have a -- the biggest land sale initiative that we have happening is in Bowie, Maryland at the site of the former park there. We have a signed a contract, a purchase agreement for the park.

The buyer is going through a due diligence process. The window for that materializing is going to take some time. That might be late 2027, early 2028. But 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.

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 report our third quarter 2026 results. That concludes our call today, Ellie. Everyone can disconnect.

Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by. My name is Desiree, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Six Flags Entertainment Corporation 2026 First Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to Six Flags' management for opening remarks. Go ahead please.

Good morning and welcome to Six Flags Entertainment Corporation's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Michael Russell Six Flags' Head of IR. On the call with me today are John Reilly President and Chief Executive Officer; Brian Witherow; and Dave Hoffman Chief Accounting Officer and Interim Finance Lead.

Before we begin I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call may be forward-looking statements. These statements 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 those risks.

Today's call will begin with prepared remarks from John followed by Dave after which John will return for closing remarks. We will then open the call for questions.

With that I'll turn the call over to John. John?

Thank you Michael and good morning. Before discussing the quarter I want to address the leadership changes we announced this morning. We have made targeted adjustments across key areas of our senior leadership team including finance administration and marketing to better align our organization with our strategic priorities going forward.

We thank Brian for his many years of service and contributions to this company. Dave Hoffman our Chief Accounting Officer will step in on a temporary basis to lead the finance organization. I am confident Dave will help make this a smooth transition.

Since stepping into the role of CEO I've worked with the team to take deliberate actions to strengthen the company's strategic and financial positioning including the sale of noncore assets, monetization of excess land and refinancing of our balance sheet. These actions, together with the leadership actions we are implementing, position us to execute against our core operating objectives.

Turning to the quarter. We delivered meaningful year-over-year improvement driven by higher attendance, increased guest spending and disciplined cost management. While the first quarter is seasonally limited with only a subset of parks open, including our parks in California, Mexico and Texas, the strong first quarter results demonstrate the resilience of our operating model and progress against our priorities. Before getting into the drivers of the quarter, I do want to acknowledge that results benefited from the earlier timing of Easter and spring break as well as more normalized operating conditions in California relative to the disruption that we experienced in the prior year.

While these factors helped, first quarter performance also reflects the cumulative impact of the foundational work we have put in place over the past year. This includes the integration of our ticketing platforms, enhancements to our digital and commercial capabilities, and operational improvements across our parks. Together, these efforts are driving measurable gains in consumer engagement and demand.

A key component of that progress has been our decision to allocate additional resources to our revenue management efforts, supported by enhancements to our consumer-facing digital platforms. As part of this initiative, we have embedded pricing and revenue management expertise into the organization and redesigned our platforms to better guide guests towards the best value for their needs.

In the first quarter, we saw the benefits in higher conversion rates, improved capture and increased migration toward higher-value season pass products. New for 2026, we've introduced regional access benefits across select pass tiers, allowing guests to visit multiple parks within a defined region. This new regional pass offering is gaining traction as guests are demonstrating a clear preference for greater flexibility and broader access, driving product upgrades and increased cross-park visitation.

We are encouraged by the early response, including improved pass sales trends, a more favorable product mix and strong guest interest in visiting more than one park. The regional pass has also enabled us to enter the core of the season with a larger and more engaged pass and membership base, which we expect will support visitation and spending through the peak operating period.

Once guests arrive at our parks, we saw strong in-park spending trends during the quarter, reflecting the earlier timing of the Knott's Boysenberry Festival, a high per cap event as well as improved food and beverage offerings and higher park utilization driving incremental ancillary spend. To restore localized decision-making, we have reintroduced park presidents at our largest parks. We've done this to improve accountability, accelerate decision-making and drive greater consistency across the portfolio.

We remain disciplined in our capital allocation. Our priority is to invest in parks that offer the highest returns, particularly at our larger properties with a focus on enhancing the guest experience through targeted investments in rides, food and beverage, and the overall environment. Residual free cash flow will be directed toward operations and towards debt reduction. As an extension of this strategy, we have completed the sale of select parks and progressed on the sale of noncore land assets. These actions are expected to enhance margins, sharpen focus and improve returns to shareholders.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Dave. Dave?

Thanks, John. For the first quarter, attendance increased 4%, per capita spending increased 6% and net revenue increased 12% compared to the prior year. Through April, which normalizes for the Easter shift, trends in attendance and revenue remain positive. Our teams also delivered strong cost control with first quarter operating costs down meaningfully year-over-year. Taken together, we drove a $48 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA, reflecting improvements across demand, guest spending and cost discipline. Performance was driven by pricing and product structure changes, improved marketing and messaging and strong in-park operations.

Consistent with John's remarks, we are seeing the impact of our pricing and revenue management initiatives contributing to improved pricing and product mix. This is reflected in the 3% increase in admissions per capita and the 10% increase in in-park product per capita spending achieved alongside attendance growth, underscoring the quality of demand.

We strengthened our balance sheet during the quarter through refinancing, improved liquidity and extending maturities. May and June are key selling periods for our season pass and membership products, and we expect greater visibility into full season trends as we move through those months.

Finally, we completed the sale of select noncore parks during the quarter and have provided additional details within the earnings release to assist with modeling those disposals.

As we think about the first quarter, it's important to keep a few factors in mind. Results benefited from timing and more normalized operating conditions in California. It's also important to remember that only a portion of our parks are open in the first quarter. As such, the quarter represents approximately 6% to 8% of full year attendance and revenues, and the company usually operates at a loss in the first quarter because most of our seasonal parks are closed. As a result, we would caution against extrapolating first quarter performance to the full year.

Lastly, we are not providing formal earnings guidance or long-term targets at this time. Instead, we are focused on consistent execution across the operating levers that drive long-term value. We believe investors are best served by transparency around demand trends, per capita spending, cost discipline, liquidity and capital structure, areas where we have strong visibility and are already seeing progress. While we're not providing guidance, we remain committed to regular transparent communication. As the season unfolds and visibility improves, we will continue to provide clear qualitative context around performance trends, key initiatives and progress against our strategic priorities.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to John.

Thanks, Dave. Before we move to closing remarks, I'll ask Brian to share a few brief comments.

Thanks, John. As this is my final earnings call, I want to say what an honor it has been to serve as the CFO of Six Flags and our predecessor company, Cedar Fair. Over the last 31-plus years, I've had the opportunity to work with an incredible group of colleagues, execute numerous M&A transactions, including the most important merger in our industry and lay the foundation for the future of the new Six Flags. I'm proud of everything we've accomplished during that time, and I'm confident that Six Flags is well positioned to continue to succeed and provide engaging and entertaining experiences for our guests for years to come.

John?

Thank you, Brian. We appreciate your contributions, and we wish you our best.

Turning to the quarters ahead. We are entering the most important part of our operating season with encouraging early momentum, particularly around consumer demand, and we're excited about our new park offerings. Our 2026 capital program was highlighted by the addition of Tormenta, the world's tallest dive coaster at Six Flags over Texas as well as the return of MonteZOOMa at Knott's Berry Farm, one of the park's iconic attractions.

Meanwhile, we're focused on the family market at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey with the first phase of a new boardwalk area and at Six Flags Magic Mountain north of Los Angeles with the introduction of Looney Tunes Land, a fully reimagined themed area that will be the home of our Looney Tunes characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and others. These park enhancements are aimed at expanding our addressable audience and complementing the park's core thrill business.

At Kings Island, our new Phantom Theater experience blends immersive storytelling, animatronics and multisensory effects to create a highly engaging indoor attraction. And earlier this week, we announced plans to expand the entertainment offerings at 3 parks, including a reimagined lineup of summertime shows at Kings Dominion and the return of Holiday in the Park at Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags over Georgia. These are strategic decisions based on thorough analysis and consumer research.

Strategically, these types of offerings broaden our reach. They allow us to attract guests who may not typically visit during our traditional operating season, while reinforcing the value of our season pass and membership programs by extending the number of meaningful use opportunities throughout the year.

As our seasonal parks have begun to open, we're encouraged by the positive trends we're seeing in both consumer demand and operational execution. While we are still early in the season, the momentum we are building reflects the actions we've taken across pricing, product design and park-level execution. As we move through the year, we're mindful of several dynamics, including more competitive comparisons related to last year's marketing activity, promotional cadence and early cost synergy benefits. These are factors we understand well and have planned for, and they are embedded in how we are managing the business going forward.

Against this backdrop, we remain focused on disciplined execution. We believe the underlying improvements we've made across demand generation, monetization and cost control position us well to navigate these dynamics and continue building momentum through the balance of the season. More importantly, we believe these actions are strengthening the foundation of the business in a way that supports sustainable growth, margin expansion and long-term value creation.

Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. Dave and I are ready for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ben Chaiken with Mizuho.

Brian best of luck. It's been great. On the operating day strategy the operating days year-to-date down year-over-year I would imagine part of the strategy -- that's part of the strategy to help control costs. I guess how do you think about operating days for the remainder of the year and other opportunities to control costs? And then one quick follow-up.

Sure. Ben this is John and I'll start out here. So we approach this issue market by market and some of the efficiency we saw in January benefited us on the cost side and then we were pleased with the results the attendance per day as we talked about earlier. So we'll approach this with agility as we go forward. And even in Q1 for example we were adding days in Mexico City while we were adjusting the other way for some of the parks. Part of that dynamic in the first quarter is the loss of the winter events just to carry over the first week in January.

And then going forward I'll turn this over to Dave and he has the numbers for you for the year to go.

Ben this is Dave. So you read the 24-day reduction in Q1. We expect to remove another 16 days in Q2 and then add 60 days in the balance of the year. So overall we expect to add 20 days to the calendar. You know that that is subject to change as we get deeper into the year but that's what the plan is.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then just one question on kind of the 1Q and the year-to-date. I know you mentioned in the prepared remarks that Easter I believe you said was a benefit to 1Q. I think just stepping back and thinking historically I would imagine that Easter being earlier was a marginal headwind to the year-to-date attendance numbers just given the seasonality around park openings I guess. Is that correct like that logic? And then if so how much can you give us to kind of have a ballpark or a round number of what that impact was on a year-to-date standpoint recognizing that you said it was a benefit to 1Q specifically?

Yes. We -- I don't know that we would characterize the timing of it as a headwind at all. I think it can be a headwind when it's very early like in March. But it just happened to be very late in 2025. So the April comparison give us comfort that we navigated through the March plus April comps favorably.

Next question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski with Stifel.

So John, I want to ask about the cost structure. I mean that was a pretty big surprise in the quarter. And look, I understand there are gives and takes in terms of year-over-year comparability. But wondering if you can help us think about the longer-term margin opportunity in terms of what you kind of see as you work your way into that job, John, I would say, especially now with some of that -- the lower-margin parks removed from the portfolio.

Yes. Thanks, Steve. So the cost work that we've been able to execute on is part of a plan that we've implemented in the company, and we have various levers, including organizational changes in our corporate offices in Charlotte and in Arlington. We've made changes there while supplementing the parks. That's one key lever. We did benefit somewhat from changes that were made in '25 in Q1. And then we have since executed other changes, as I've said, reducing the overhead centrally and increasing the resources at the park level for a net reduction.

We see considerable opportunity on the procurement front going forward. We've engaged in calls and negotiations with our top 75 vendors, and then we have begun outreach to the next 400 vendors to really remind them of the scale of what we offer as North America's largest regional operator, the benefit of working with us on our contracts and asking them for help and efficiencies. The early returns have been encouraging. But we have a lot of -- we see -- we believe we have a lot of opportunity to mine on the procurement front.

And then there's a number of other initiatives we talked in the last quarter about automation and efficiency and ideas from the field. We are executing on those ideas now as well that should yield cost savings going forward. And I think also the structure where we have park presidents now is going to help accelerate the impact of those kinds of initiatives.

And then to conclude, I would just go back up to something that we also said last quarter, look, in 2025, we finished at 27% EBITDA margin. Clearly, it was a difficult year. But to have the scale that we have and to be at 27%, we've said before, is not something that we accept, and we're working hard to improve upon it. And you can see the comps in the industry, but certainly in the 30% ranges, 30-plus percent ranges are -- it's proven that regional operators can execute in that space. So we see opportunity. We're not going to put a number on it, but we're unhappy with 27%, and we have a plan to improve it over time.

Okay. And then second question, I want to ask about the entire park portfolio at this point. I mean, obviously, you guys have sold a number of parks over the past couple of months. And I'm wondering as you kind of look across the portfolio at this point, John, if you see other opportunities to whether sell or shut down underperforming parks. And then maybe help us think about what, in your mind, the optimal number of parks is eventually going to look like over the longer term.

Yes. Thanks. So the -- we executed on what we said we would, which is the sale of 6 parks that have been closed in the U.S. that were some of our smaller parks. And then we have Montreal that we expect to close in the second quarter. So we've executed on what we said. The first thing I think it's important to say that we've said to our consumers and our pass members and our prospective visitors is that we have no other plans in 2026. If you're buying a pass, if you're thinking about a pass, the portfolio is the portfolio, and we're focused on the summer and execution. I think that's a very important message for people who want to come and experience the summer in our parks.

That said, we are seeing the benefits of focus since the disposal of the 6 parks and the pending sale of Montreal. We're seeing the benefits of focus in our strategy. And we're really focused on execution, on demand generation, on pricing and operational execution. And the more we can focus that on the highest yield parks, the biggest parks, the better off we'll be. So we'll approach this with flexibility, and we'll be willing to look at it again in the future.

Next question comes from the line of James Hardiman with Citi.

I wanted to start out by saying, Brian, it's been a pleasure working with you and learning from you through the years. I want to say you'll be missed and good luck with the next chapter.

And then -- so following up on sort of the previous line of questioning, the slimmed down portfolio, it looks like from some of the disclosures here, you're losing about 10% to 11% of attendance, only about 6% of EBITDA. Maybe help us think through the cash flow implications of that slimmed down portfolio, both quantitatively, if you can give us sort of updated numbers in terms of CapEx and interest and taxes, but then qualitatively, right, that renewed focus on the parts that really moved the needle. I'm assuming you can now dedicate more of the CapEx budgets to what's left and hopefully, what could get sort of those incremental returns and ideally drive incremental upside from what's left. But maybe walk us through some of those items.

So James, this is John. The -- we did provide a table in the earnings release that walks you through that quarter-by-quarter for the year, the revenue, the EBITDA impact quarter-by-quarter because we know that's something that will be important as you model our performance. The -- you're correct, and I think we had it on the earlier question, too, that it can help drive margin improvement because these are generally lower margin parks than our higher scaled parks. Additionally, with CapEx allocation, the way you characterized it, is, I think, generally accurate that this gives us more flexibility with CapEx toward parks with higher returns. So we see it in the same way.

If there's a specific, I guess, cash flow or tax question, I think Dave can take that.

I guess I would just reiterate, it's really more about reallocating to higher return parks. So just kind of calling out some of the numbers, James. We're still expecting $425 million to $450 million of CapEx for the year. The first quarter CapEx was a little bit lighter than that, just given the cadence of some of the projects, but we still expect to get within that range. Cash interest is still expected to be $300 million to $320 million, and that includes the impact of the refinancing, of course. And we expect cash taxes to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million to $30 million for the year, and that's before consideration of a significant income tax refund that we claimed on the most recent tax return.

Got it. That's all really helpful color. And then, I guess, specifically, as we think about the 2Q opportunity, looking back to last year, that's really when sort of the wheels fell off. Obviously, on the attendance side, you guys had impossibly difficult weather as we think about late May and into June. But also on the cost side, if memory serves, you really leaned into marketing with a significant amount of discretionary spending in the second quarter.

Is there a way to think about once we lap those 2 items -- obviously, we won't really know what the weather is until we get there, but is there a way to think about, I don't know, operating costs year-over-year in the second quarter or as a percentage of sales, however you guys think about it, what's the cost opportunity in 2Q? And where would you like to see the active pass base heading into the second half? Obviously, that was another big part of why the second half of last year was such a struggle just being so far behind in active pass base.

Sure. James, this is John, and I'll take that. So although we won't -- we aren't going to guide a cost number for Q2 or for remainder of the year, I'll make just a couple of points. Number one, we -- as we mentioned in the context of Q1, we have a cost savings program and efficiency program underway. I've been very encouraged by the receptivity of our team, by their execution, by their willingness to embrace targets with guardrails in specific areas. And so we're executing on that. We will continue to execute in Q2.

On the comments that we made at the beginning of the call to your marketing question for the second part is yes, there was a big spend in marketing last year and in Q2, and we've listed that as one of the factors that we need to sort out and we need to think about the comps going into Q2. So the -- and we'll be agile in terms of our approach to that.

The other thing I would mention is we do have some pressure in maintenance costs. And I expect from the reviews that we're doing at a park level, we expect some maintenance cost pressure in Q2. And it's an important spend for us because we're committed to do a better job with our ride uptime and with the number of trains and cars available on all of our rides. So that's something that we're going to -- when we see a need, we're going to execute against it. So I would mention the marketing and the maintenance that you mentioned are probably good factors to think about.

The -- as we think about the summer and the active pass base, we continue to be encouraged by this Gold Pass, this regional pass that has been rolled out and really accelerated our sales since the rollout. People are really enjoying the benefit of being able to cross-visit parks that has appeal for the sale and then also for additional attendance within regions like Texas or the East Coast or within California. So we're encouraged by that.

As we think about the summer, we're going to continue focusing on the regional pass. We are also seeing a benefit from the reintroduction of membership and the higher renewal rates that we see on that, and that's part of the reason for the increased pass base that we talked about.

Next question comes from the line of Patrick Scholes with Truist Securities.

Question for you regarding pass sales. When I look at the comparable 1Q earnings release from a year ago, and I'm just trying to match things up sort of apples-to-apples to figure out how they're going. The KPI metric in a year-ago press release was that the 5-week period ending May 4, 2025, season pass sales were up 6%. I don't think when you say in this most recent quarter, active pass base up 6%, that's an apples-to-apples. Do you have an apples-to-apples metric that we can compare to that 5-week period that you said a year ago to help us understand how the pass sales are trending? And I apologize if it -- go ahead, sorry.

Yes. We don't have that prepared like a 5-week view on that for you. But what I would say is back to the issue -- back to the positive impact that we're seeing from both membership and the regional pass, the membership has a higher renewal rate, and that has an effect in growing our pass base. So the more we lap the reintroduction last year of membership, we should see more people staying in the fold. And so that's a combined factor along with the sales rate on season passes.

Okay. And then going back to the CapEx, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you said this year, not so much change. But how do we think about like a run rate here? I think you're running like $400 million. After this year, once those passes, you're not -- those parks are no longer being operated or being used by your pass members. How do we think about sort of the run rate again after this year CapEx?

Yes. So in terms of the pass, I think we mentioned we've guided to $425 million. It could be at $450 million for this year. We're not going to guide long range on it, but the visibility we have for now is in that $425 million range. And as Dave mentioned before, it would be a reprioritization, reallocation of the CapEx that would have gone to the parks that were sold to parks with higher and better returns.

Next question comes from the line of Lizzie Dove with Goldman Sachs.

I want to echo. Brian, it's been great to work with you. Really appreciated your help all the years. So good luck with the next chapter. In terms of -- I'd love to just touch on the consumer for a second. There's been a lot of cross-currents for the last few months. We've got higher gas prices for the consumer, yet your pickup trends have looked really good the last 2 quarters, but maybe some of that shoulder season comparability. So maybe it would be great just to hear from you what you're seeing there on the ground consumer-wise.

Yes. This is John, Lizzie. Thanks for the question. We're focused on what we can control, the levers in the business. And for us, we're not really able at this point to attribute performance trends to those kind of external factors. And the reasoning is we think there's a lot of opportunity in the business to execute. And so the work that we mentioned before that we're doing in our commercial area with revenue management, with pricing, with upgrading our visitors to higher pass products that have a lot more value to them, that's where we see the real opportunity. And our belief is to execute well against that, increase our capabilities going forward in that area. That's some of the reason for the marketing changes that we mentioned today that the opportunity there is a good one for us.

So our focus is execution, focusing on what we can change, what we can do, and we've got our heads in the business. And of course, we'll monitor external factors, and we'll be agile, and we have other levers in the business that we can go after if we need to. But our focus is on what we've laid out so far.

Got it. And then I appreciate you're not giving guidance at this point for the year, but high level, it would be great to just get a refresh on how you're thinking about the kind of building blocks for this year and in terms of particularly like the attendance, recapture opportunity and how you're kind of balancing that in terms of per caps.

So yes, demand generation is a real key for us, and we want profitable attendance in the parks. There's excess capacity in the business to grow attendance, but we want to do it profitably. And the initiatives we have underway thus far are working in that area. The regional pass with the access to parks, the increase in cross-park visitation, the appeal that has to sales, that's been a positive for demand generation. We believe there's further opportunity there and the leadership structure that we announced with the -- with having someone dedicated both to demand generation in our brand on the CMO side and then our commercial operation, which is conversion, price and yielding supporting that as well.

So we -- demand generation is important to us going forward as is pricing, which thus far, we're seeing good results there due to the trade-up in the past years.

Next question comes from the line of David Katz with Jefferies.

Brian, I appreciate all the time and attention, and all the best. I wanted to dig just a little bit deeper into the regional pass, which is interesting in a good way, I mean, to ask. What data you've looked at or what trends you looked at? And can we potentially interpret this as a step in the direction of a more specific set of passes across the system over time?

Yes, this is John. I'll -- so in terms of the regional pass, the program in the future -- I think what I would say is the regional pass we have now available at what we're calling the gold level across the parks, there's considerable opportunity to further mine that. And we're also developing our membership program and other things. But the -- this has just been introduced, and we believe it's an opportunity to continue to mine going forward. When you think about it, we're seeing cross-park visitation much higher. And if you look at the appeal of that, for example, a guest in San Antonio, who's a pass member, a Gold Pass member at Fiesta, Texas, can go ride Tormenta in Arlington this summer. The same thing with a pass member at Knott's can go see the new Looney Tunes area at Magic Mountain, and that has a tremendous appeal.

There are implications for that in how we think about our catchment areas, our media spend, our pricing and other areas as we go forward. And of course, we're going to mine that, but we're really in the early stages and see considerable opportunity to continue to optimize that.

Okay. And then one quick follow-up. The park presidents, can you just provide a little more color on those? Were those people who had worked with the parks before, people within the parks who were elevated? Did they come from other parks? I'm just curious. And I imagine the answer is some version of all of the above, but I'm curious just a little more color on that.

You're right. It's all of the above. We're really pleased with the talent level we have there at the parks with park presidents and also our parks with park managers. It's one of the things that I found to be very encouraging as we travel around, we visit the parks and we work with them on their plans. We have people who are committed, entrepreneurial and understand the imperative of execution right now.

So in some parks, we have people who rejoined us. In some parks, we have people that have come over from a competitor. But in most cases, these were internal promotions and the talent level internally was very good to feed these promotions.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Arpine Kocharyan with UBS.

This is Rob Henry on for Arpine. I wanted just to go back to the pass product. It seems like you might have kind of turned the corner there with units up 6%. Can you just give any color on pricing and maybe mix shifts that you're seeing within the pass product?

If you look at the mix of the pass products, we have the Silver Pass, we have the Gold and then we have the Elite and we have membership. And we're -- as we've said, the real power we're seeing is a trade-up into Gold, but we also have people trading up into the premium categories. As we see that, we're constantly monitoring and adjusting where we need to in terms of price or promotional strategy to optimize the distribution across those tiers.

But the real strength in the program right now, the power in the program right now is driven by 2 factors. One, the availability of visits to these sister parks that are nearby. We're seeing people are willing to drive and to visit. But secondly, the improvements we've seen because we have revenue management expertise embedded in the organization and the combination of the experts and the talent we have on our team, like Chris Meyering, whose promotion we announced this morning. They're really delivering in terms of the conversion, the merchandising, the consideration and the conversion on our website. So we're seeing improvement in our website performance along with the appeal of the product architecture.

That's really helpful color. And then just kind of as a follow-up, on the specified parts, it looks like it's a bit of a tailwind here in Q1 given that there was a bit of a drag on EBITDA. It seems like given kind of the table that you've laid out, kind of the rest of the year might be a bit of a headwind with the lost EBITDA there. And so is that still kind of fair to think about in that way? Or how should we consider that as we move forward?

That cost is included in the Q1 results. I mean we've mapped out the impact for you over the course of the year. So the tailwind would presumably be in Q1 of 2027.

Next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank.

Brian, I appreciate all the guidance and insights over the years. So all the best. I was hoping we could maybe talk for a minute about marketing. And I know that your plans are fluid and they're long term and you're going to adjust and adapt. But John, maybe just a thought or 2 on kind of where you are this year versus where you think you can get to in terms of reach and effectiveness of some of the marketing changes, things like going to more social media and bringing in some partners and some sponsors, like where you are in that process? And do we get more benefit this year or next year, do you think?

Yes. I would answer that by saying, one, we've applied learnings from lessons that we identified from 2025, including how we were presenting our retail message, how we were marketing our passes, how we're merchandising them on the website. And also in terms of our creative, we've made big changes in our creative.

That said, this is the key growth lever for this company, at least in the near term in terms of demand generation, in terms of evolving our brands. And as you say, in terms of properly leveraging emerging channels to drive demand. And that's precisely the reason that we're bringing Amy Martin Ziegenfuss on board to work to evolve our marketing program. We're in the early innings.

Okay. Okay. That's great to hear, John. And then just as a follow-up, when we think about your properties, you've obviously gotten through a slug of noncore sales. You're working on some land parcels, it sounds like. But question is on hotels. You have 2, what I would think would be very core hotels at Knott's and Cedar Point. Then you have kind of a handful of other smaller hotels in the surrounding areas. Should we think about those as being core longer term or possibly not?

We like the synergy of the lodging business, especially in terms of bringing people in from drive markets. We have research that supports that. But even in regional parks, there's a market for people who want to come in from a longer drive. The model that we have, as you said, at Cedar Point and Knott's Berry Farm is very powerful. The hotels are fantastic. They're updated. They're modern. And that's working for us. So we don't see any reason to walk back from the lodging programs that we have elsewhere.

And our last question today comes from Eric Wold of Texas Capital Securities.

I guess two questions. The first kind of going back on the question a couple ago on pricing. I know you mentioned that kind of the pricing on the passes and daily is kind of dynamic and kind of you're driving it based on demand. But as you start the season, can you give us a sense of kind of what's embedded in kind of the pricing of the daily and pass prices versus last year to start the season?

So the pricing versus last year, we're -- a lot of the growth that we're seeing is from the trade-up in the tiers and from the movement into membership because it's a higher yield product for us. So it's not necessarily an increase at the pass level. And we really want to bring people back into our parks. We're really focused on providing a good value, providing a suite of benefits that's compelling like the regional pass. And for that, as we said earlier, we want to grow profitable attendance. We want to grow profitable visitation to the parks, and that's the balance. But the principal lift that we're seeing, Eric, is from the trade-up within the tiers or the membership.

Got it. And then as you kind of enter the core season, maybe give us a sense of the hiring environment you're seeing out there in terms of availability, wage rate compared to last year and how that plays into your plan to staff appropriately as demand ramps?

Our team is doing an excellent job staffing the parks. As we move into Memorial Day weekend, our stats tell us where we need to be, 90-plus percent of target. So we don't see any significant headwinds in that area. Like many other things we've mentioned, we take an agile approach. And if there's one position like lifeguards in one park, we make an adjustment and we address that. But we don't see any global issue.

That concludes the question-and-answer session. I'll now turn it over to Michael Russell for closing remarks.

We appreciate you joining us today. Our next earnings call will be in August when we report our financial results for the 2026 second quarter. That concludes our call today, Desiree. Thank you, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Ellie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Six Flags Entertainment Corporation 2025 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to the Six Flags management for opening remarks. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Six Flags Entertainment Corporation's 2025 fourth quarter and full year results. My name is Michael Russell, I'm Corporate Director of Investor Relations for the company.

Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings release, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's comments include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for a discussion of those risks.

Joining me today are President and Chief Executive Officer, John Reilly; and Chief Financial Officer, Brian Witherow. John will kick things off with his observations of the business since joining the company late last year. Brian will provide a review of our financial and operating results, then John will close things out with his outlook for the business and how we are approaching the 2026 season. We'll then take your questions.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings call and my first earnings call as CEO of Six Flags. On today's call, I will start by providing some background information on my experience in the industry. Why I jumped at the opportunity to become Six Flags next CEO? And my initial observations after spending the past 2 months on the ground.

First, a little bit about me. I started out in the regional theme park business many years ago, selling popcorn as a teenager before working my way up to the executive positions in two of the world's largest regional amusement park companies. One based here in the U.S. and the other based in Europe. Theme parks are in my blood, and I'm very proud of the work I've done at each career stop to deliver exceptional experiences for our guests, to provide a fun and dynamic work environment for our team members and to drive higher profits for our owners.

So what excited me about the opportunity to join Six Flags? First, I love this industry. The regional theme park is a resilient and growing industry with high barriers to entry leading to limited supply, resilient performance during recessions and consistent demand when parks are well managed. In addition, Six Flags has a dominant position within the industry as the largest regional theme park player in the world. Second, Six Flags parks are located in some of the largest and fastest-growing markets in North America. There are more than 200 million people living within easy driving distance to our parks, providing a huge opportunity to increase our penetration and to grow attendance over time.

And finally, this company has tremendous assets and significant earnings potential. Throughout my career and particularly as I've assumed executive level positions over the past decade, I have often been tasked with turning around underperforming assets. I can tell you this. There's no better feeling than unleashing the potential of a talented team of people to revise strategy and to improve execution, all with the goal of delivering sustained earnings growth over time. I'm not here to spend time on the past. I'm here to build a disciplined operating culture that consistently delivers reliable, fun and memorable guest experiences as well as dependable financial outcomes and to earn credibility with our guests and investors quarter-by-quarter.

This role is personal for me. Growing up in the theme park industry, I know what great looks like. Over the past several weeks, I've been spending time in our parks, a lot of time, walk in the midways, meeting with Park leadership teams, conducting focus groups with guests and engaging with our frontline associates. Those visits have been invaluable, and they've reinforced my conviction about the underlying strength of our company. What I've seen reinforces two things. The underlying demand is there and the biggest value creation opportunity is through better execution.

Let me just share a few examples from our park visits because I believe they highlight the kind of high return work that can change consumer perception and quickly improved results. At Six Flags Magic Mountain, I visited the Park's maintenance shops during my tour. And from my interactions there, it was clear, the maintenance team took great pride in their efforts this past year to restore coaster trains and put them back into service, driving better ride-up time, more rides for guests and higher guest satisfaction. With a fleet of more than 60 coaster trains, we'll benefit from their hard work and our investments even more so going forward. We're already seeing positive signs of this work and investment in guest KPIs in 2025 and early in the 2026 season. We expect to see significantly increased ride up time and throughput at Magic Mountain and in other parks.

Important work like this is going on in all operating areas across our parks. On the food and beverage front, we placed executive chefs in the park to elevate food quality and improve guest satisfaction. During my tour of Carowinds, Irraj, our executive chef there, show me how innovations are expanding the Park's menu offerings this year. And he and his team explained how they are more efficiently approaching food preparation during varying demand levels with monitored holding times to ensure guests are getting the freshest and best quality food. The placement of chefs has been fully deployed already and now with the right resources in place, we are positioned to reliably deliver higher-quality food across our parks.

Our scale provides us with a clear mandate to constantly improve efficiency. As I've traveled to parks and conducted leadership town halls, I'm encouraged that our park teams are not only embracing the challenge, but taking pride in driving efficiency. They are committed to do this work the right way, always protecting the guest experience.

When I visited Kings Island, our maintenance team shared their idea how we could save thousands by purchasing certain equipment we're currently renting. I can assure you this is something they are digging into further.

During my stop at Canada's Wonderland, Ravindra, our workforce Director, proudly explained how his efforts ensured labor is being scheduled according to forecasted demand levels so that park labor is deployed at the right time and the right place throughout our entire enterprise. Effectiveness in this area helps reduce costs and ultimately helps drive improved guest spending. The workforce management program was deployed across the portfolio last year, and now we stand to benefit from the resources and systems that are in place to drive efficiency and increase reliability in our business.

Having been through this process a number of times, I can assure you this, the best ideas and highest return innovations come from the people closest to the work. At Six Flags, that's our ride operators, our maintenance teams, food and retail leaders, call center teams, finance and accounting staff, among others. Therefore, we've recently created a formal feedback channel for associates to submit their ideas for innovation at all our parks. So far, we've received more than 300 proposals from our parks alone, recommending projects to create efficiencies and automate workflows. These submissions are currently under evaluation as we look to activate the ideas with the highest paybacks.

We want to recognize great ideas, reward them and scale what works across our entire park portfolio. Everyone should expect a faster operating cadence and higher accountability across the board. We are committed to the operations levers that drive our guest experience in our business, reliability, throughput, cleanliness, value and fun events and experiences. By mastering these, we will fuel demand and increase guest spending. Moving forward, we will simplify our processes and remain highly disciplined about where we invest to ensure maximum returns.

For our employees, my commitment to you is to provide clear standards, to remove obstacles to progress and to make decisions quickly, so you can do your best work. For our guests and fans, when you come to our parks, your entertainment experience each visit should meet or exceed your expectations. We want you back, so we plan to earn your trust to ensure that happens.

With that, I'll turn it over to Brian to walk through the quarter and full year results in more detail. I'll then share some thoughts on our initial areas of focus. Brian?

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with a recap of our fourth quarter and full year results before providing an update on select balance sheet items as well as early performance indicators for the season ahead.

For the fourth quarter, we are in the middle of our guidance range. delivering adjusted EBITDA of $165 million on attendance of 9.3 million guests and revenues of $650 million. Two dynamics impacted the quarter. First, results for the quarter were up against a record performance in October of 2024, which we discussed on our last earnings call. Secondly, operating days in the winter holiday calendar mattered a lot. We operated [ 779 ] days in the fourth quarter of 2025 versus [ 878 ] days last year. As was expected and as we discussed last quarter, a significant portion of the decline in operating days reflects our decision not to operate winter holiday events at 4 parks, a decision that was made earlier in the year.

In hindsight, that decision did not optimize profits at every part the way we needed it to. Those events can be meaningful demand drivers and removing them created a self-inflicted headwind in terms of both the tenants and operating leverage. We're taking that learning directly into our planning for 2026, and we will rethink the winter holiday strategy with a tighter returns-driven approach market by market rather than applying a broad brush. And while weather created variability in the quarter with 15 park closure days versus 3 last year, the more significant impact on demand was our decision to eliminate the winter holiday events, which created an attendance headwind of approximately 425,000 visits.

At the same time, during the quarter, spending by guests visiting our parks was strong. Our capital spending was up year-over-year, supported by higher guest spending on admissions and on in-park products. That matters because it reinforces that when guests get through the gate, there is clear opportunity to drive revenue and profitability through better execution, including higher throughput, better staffing alignment efficient food and beverage operations and overall guest flow.

For the full year, we produced net revenues of $3.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $792 million, while entertaining 47.4 million guests, and delivering per capita spending of $61.9. Similar to the quarter, the year reflects a mix of strong guest spending and execution gaps that impacted attendance and operating efficiency, particularly around the operating calendar. We're using those outcomes as inputs into a tighter operating plan for the upcoming season with a focus on consistency and repeatability across the portfolio.

As we noted on our last earnings call, this past season a lot. It proved to be a tale of two cohorts. Our best-performing parks overcame their operating challenges. And in several instances, parks delivered record or near record years. At the same time, there were other parks in our portfolio that weren't as well positioned to withstand the operating challenges. The stark difference in park performance reinforces the notion that some of the profitability challenges we faced in 2025 were episodic and execution-related rather than structural or systemic in nature. This distinction matters as we strategize our path forward.

Turning briefly to the balance sheet. In early January, we completed a significantly oversubscribed refinancing of our April 2027 notes at attractive rates. It's an important step in strengthening our capital structure and increasing financial flexibility as we focus on execution and performance. We have substantial covenant cushion, extended maturities and a clear deleveraging framework. Our leverage reflects 2025 depressed EBITDA, not structural over indebtedness.

Touching quickly on our longer lead indicators. At year-end, deferred revenues were up approximately 1%, driven primarily by higher advanced sales of single-day tickets and increased deposits from our group business channel. More importantly, sales trends of season passes and memberships have accelerated since year-end, supported by our new season pass architecture that includes guest access to multiple parks via newly designed regional pass products. While this represents a small sample size, the improved sales from the past few weeks are an indication that the strategic changes we've made are resonating with consumers.

We're entering the most important part of the selling season with improving momentum, clear offerings and a stronger platform to convert demand into park visits, a dynamic John will speak to in more detail in just a moment. Lastly, while we are not issuing formal guidance, our internal plans for the season ahead are built around improving revenue and cash flow relative to 2025.

With that, let me turn the call back to John.

Thanks, Brian. Let me build on that with how we're approaching the business as we plan for 2026. While demand was pressured this past year, spending by guests who did visit remain solid. That and the early strong response to changes we've made to our past programs that Brian just mentioned tells me something important. The revenue engine is intact. This is not a broken model, but one that requires sharper execution, clearer focus and tighter alignment between commercial strategy and operations. The opportunity is to run this portfolio with greater consistency, more disciplined decision-making and a refined playbook to convert demand into durable earnings and stronger cash generation.

I'm early in my tenure, and I won't pretend to have every answer, but I've spent my career in this industry, and I know what high-performing parks look like. And what I see across this portfolio are very addressable opportunities that can unlock meaningful upside under disciplined execution.

First, we're evaluating how we go to market. We operate powerful regional brands, and we must deploy them with greater precision. Our guests are not identical market to market, and our marketing strategy should not be either. Over the past year, we saw the same promotion produce very different outcomes across regions. This is not a demand problem. It's an opportunity for us to better tailor our efforts to our local communities by applying tighter test-and-learn discipline. Marketing then becomes a demand lever, not just a traffic driver.

Pricing is part of that same reset. Our architecture must be simpler, clearer, easier to communicate across ticket types, passes and add-ons with fewer and stronger offers that improve conversion and yield, better alignment between promotional timing, operating calendar, staffing levels not simply to produce more demand but more profitable demand. Second, we're driving consistency of execution and margin expansion. This business rewards operational excellence. A portfolio of our size should benefit from scale, and our guests should experience reliability everywhere, parks open on time, rides operating consistently, clean park environments, energized teams.

To deliver that, we have tightened our operating procedures, established clear standards, defined measurable KPIs and developed protocols for rapid follow-through. A critical lever in this effort is throughput. How efficiently we move guests through every touch point? I've spent time observing where friction occurs, entry gates, parking flow, food service, retail counters and ride operations. Throughput directly influences guest satisfaction, in-park spending and improved cost efficiency. Third, we're applying disciplined ROI standards to our business decisions. Every investment must answer a simple question.

Does it enhance the guest experience in a way that drives profitable demand, reduces cost or strengthens free cash flow? And does it do so at returns that justify the investment? That discipline applies to events, rides and attractions at every level. Our experience with several winter holiday events this past year provided valuable lessons. We will approach seasonal programming with market-specific rigor, clear ROI thresholds and test and scale methodology. It applies equally to capital investment. Safety and ride reliability are nonnegotiable. Beyond that, discretionary investments will prioritize projects that attract incremental visitors, improve throughput, enhance guest value and generate measurable returns.

And some of the highest ROI opportunities are operational improvements, reducing downtime, eliminating inefficiencies and standardizing systems that allow our teams to perform at their best. Taken together, these actions are designed to accelerate attendance recovery, deepen guest engagement and restore durable earnings power.

Let me wrap up with these closing thoughts. Our near-term priorities are clear: Improving profitability, strengthening the balance sheet, concentrating our time and resources on the assets and initiatives that generate the highest returns. Six Flags is a company with unique assets and significant earnings potential. Together, our teams are working to further our progress on elevating the guest experience, realizing the benefits of our incomparable scale to improve efficiency and margins, correcting missteps in marketing and operations and continuing to create financial flexibility through deleveraging and disciplined capital allocation. We will be transparent about where we are. we will move decisively on what we can fix, and we will earn credibility and your trust the way it should be earned through execution and results.

The opportunity in front of us is meaningful. I'm energized by what I've seen across the parks. I'm confident in our path forward and excited about what we can deliver together.

With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of James Hardiman of Citi.

My questions. And John, certainly welcome aboard. I think in your prepared remarks, I think you said something along the lines that you're not here to spend time in the past. But I wanted to maybe take a minute and just get your thoughts on 2025 in its totality, maybe do a brief postmortem here in an effort to sort of diagnose some of the problems that you're going to be looking to solve for in 2026? And maybe specifically, and this is a question I get a lot, I'm sure a lot of other people get this question a lot, like how do we put the various issues into buckets, right? Clearly, there are some cyclical pressures here. Clearly, there were some weather issues in 2025. I think you guys have spoken to maybe some unforced errors along the way.

And then there's this sort of secular piece, right, that I think a lot of people struggle to identify much less quantified, but ultimately, is there changing consumer behavior here at play? I think one of the other statements you made is that you think this is a resilient and growing industry. And so maybe you don't think that there is meaningful changes there. But maybe help us put some of the issues into these categories so that we can get a better framework for the business going forward?

Yes. Thanks for the question, James. So when we say we're not here to dwell in the past, it doesn't mean we aren't taking the lessons that we've learned from 2025 and correcting missteps and addressing other opportunities as we see them. So first, if you look at the consumer, we launched products in markets, as we said, that weren't sufficiently localized and in some markets that produced some abrupt changes as we were integrating. And in those markets, the consumers were used to different messaging. In some cases, they were confused about their benefits on passes, for example. In some cases, they were paying more for a pass than they felt they had paid in the past.

And so we are looking at all of those opportunities and then looking to address that misstep. So Brian mentioned on the pass program, we recently, I think, 2 weeks ago, launched a regional pass. This is a really powerful product and we're in the very early stages, but we see opportunity here and we see increased cross-visitation. We see people in markets where we have membership moving to membership. So in terms of the consumer, no, we don't think this is a consumer problem. We think we can address this through improving our execution and through addressing some missteps and learning from what was done last year.

And then also, I'd say, in terms of performance, we have a clear mandate to do margin work. And our scale gives us that mandate. And you see in the numbers, we closed out at 27% and we need to do better than that. And I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing internally that the team is embracing this challenge and doing it the right way. So we see opportunity on that front, and we're working to execute a number of initiatives there.

The other thing I would say about 2025, James, since joining the company, I've been surprised -- I could see the performance from the outside, but since I've joined the company, I've been surprised at the level of foundational work that was done in the integration. So in parks, bringing coaster trains up to full capacity as we had discussed. Improvements in parks, our tech stack. A lot of that work is behind us. So as you look forward at our capital spending, it will be less in terms of IT and technology going forward. We have ERP systems in place.

And then the condition of the parks has been a positive indicator for me. I've been to 14 so far. So I'll qualify that to say I haven't been everywhere. And we have opportunities like any park chain, but it's better than I expected. So I think in terms of the consumer, we don't see any sign there's an issue with the consumer. We think we can address that through our own behavior through our own plans. In terms of margins, we're working clearly on that. And then I think a lot of the foundational work, especially in terms of the parks themselves has been laid, which should help us as we go forward.

That's a really good outline. And maybe to the latter point about cost and margins, just curious to hear your philosophy as it relates to cost. Obviously, there's a fine line between sort of streamlining the cost structure and impairing the customer experience and by extension of demand of the business along the way. So maybe speak to how you've operationalize some of those cost savings at previous stops? And then Brian, I think we've maybe lost a little bit of a threat in terms of the cost savings that were previously outlined. Maybe give us an update what's been completed, how much is left for 2026 and if there's anything incremental that's been identified?

I'll start over, and then I'll turn it over to Brian, James. In terms of the line between the guest experience and cost savings, I think the thin line you mentioned, I'd say it's a red line. And that's what I've learned in doing this cost work in other chains, you have to protect the guest experience. It has to be a guardrail. Every initiative has to be weighed and measured, and you have to be willing to reverse if you do something that ends up with an unintended consequence. What really works here, we gave some examples on the call, but we have these 300 ideas that were under evaluation. And maybe just some specific anecdotes will give you an idea of the power of this.

We have a suggestion from Magic Mountain where they're renting an air compressor for $32,000 a year. It will cost us $35,000 to buy one and take that rental out of the P&L forever. At Notberry Farm, it will cost them $14,000 to buy a forklift that we can capitalize. It costs us $19,000 a year to rent it. And then there's a lot of ideas like that where there are just one-offs from parks, and we can scale them across the enterprise. We haven't begun to do that work yet.

So storage units for events or in the event business in a big way, we're going to be in the event business as we go forward, but we're renting equipment that we could buy for the same price that -- for the same price we could purchase it for. And in automation, parking lots, automated entry at tolls, other things those can actually improve the guest experience while creating efficiency. There are a lot of studies that show that guests actually prefer that type of frictionless entry. So I'm confident that we'll do the cost work the right way. I've done this before. We will renew the initiatives because at the same time, we're working to improve the guest experience.

Yes, James. And then as it relates to your follow-up, in terms of the original gross cost synergies that were part of the merger, we've effectively delivered on 100% of those by the end of '25. But as John just outlined, we're not satisfied or stopping there. We're going to continue to look for more meaningful opportunities to offset other cost pressures, other inflationary pressures that are in the business, whether that's through more efficiency initiatives, a few of which John just gave some examples to, additional and further standardization procedures and policies. And then as you are fully aware, right, labor is our largest single cost, more labor productivity improvements in the system.

So we're not going to put a specific number on it at this point in time. A lot of work is in motion, and there's more to be done, but we're confident that we can get more efficiencies wrung out of the system over the course of 2026.

Next question comes from the line of Arpine Kocharyan of UBS.

John, it is very clear you know and understand this business well. If you look at the performance for 2025, it was clear to even someone that's not an operator, right, that decremental margin on some of the underperforming parks was very large. So my question is, do you feel like you have a good handle on capturing that this year regardless of demand? In other words, a leaner organization that is more flexible to adapting to demand levels? Or do you think it can take some time to get to that leaner organization?

Yes. What I can tell you is that the work is underway to improve the margin, to work on these initiatives that we mentioned, both in workforce deployment, in efficiency, automation and in other efficiency initiatives that we have underway in the company. I don't have a timeline today to get to a specific target. I'm just joining here. But as I said before, 27% gives us a mandate. And I've been quite encouraged by our team members who are embracing that and embracing -- doing it the right way. So we have to do it the right way. The work is underway. We believe there is considerable opportunity over time.

And then the last thing, I think that you mentioned in terms of the organization, getting the organization to do that. The what we're doing is important, but I think the why, the how is also very important we believe strongly and pushing more decisions back with local input to the parks. We believe strongly in simplicity. We need more urgency in the organization, more localization and more accountability, quite frankly. So we're working -- while we work on the initiatives, we're working in the spirit of more accountability, more localization and more urgency and execution to get it done.

Okay, helpful. And then a quick follow-up. I was curious how you think about asset optimization and it could be early still in -- as you said, you just got there. It is clear there are at least maybe 6 to 8 parks that generate less than 5% of EBITDA in this portfolio. At the same time, it seems to me it's not as straightforward to even decide what can be pruned because there will be underperforming parts that are worth investing in to improve operations and maybe their assets that is not quite worthwhile to invest in. How do you think about that?

Yes, we approach asset evaluation through a disciplined return framework. We have rigorous work underway on that front in terms of assessing. But our highest ROI parks represent the core of the portfolio. And certainly, as you mentioned, there's -- they're done right. This could benefit leverage to optimize the portfolio but really, one of the opportunities that we're looking at is the strategic focus it gives us in order to be able to dedicate management time, expertise, know-how, capital investments, resource allocation. And I think that has, in the longer term, the potential to be the greater benefit.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski of Stifel.

John, welcome in. So I guess my first question is around guidance or lack of guidance for this year. And Brian, you kind of touched on this in your prepared remarks. But maybe wondering what drove the decision not to kind of give formal guidance? And then maybe from a high-level perspective, Brian, if you could give us some color on maybe how you think the year could play out, whether that -- whether that's from an operating days perspective, whether that's from an attendance perspective, anything there would be helpful? And then, Brian, also, do you have a forecast for CapEx and interest this year as well?

Steve, it's John. I'll start and then I'll turn things over to Brian on the latter part that you mentioned. Look, in terms of guidance, I just got here. I've been on the ground just a little bit over 2 months. Now is not the time for me to come out with guidance. We're really early in the season. We have some nascent signs of growth, but it's too early to go down that road. And we want to earn your trust with execution and results over time. And just for me, 2 months is not enough. We're confident, however, that we have the opportunity in volume, pricing, operating costs of the 2025 base to begin to deliver sequential improved results. And I'll turn it over to Brian for the second part there.

Yes, Steve. In terms of operating days, as we alluded to in the prepared remarks, there is still work being done in the fields as we challenge our park leadership teams to ensure that we're optimized on the operating day front and the operating calendar. And so there's still an opportunity to see this move. But if we look at our outlook for '26, sans the Sunset Park in Buy Maryland. I would say that the overall operating days right now are expected to be up slightly, maybe as much as 1%. That could change as we get further into the year and the opportunity to potentially add back a winter holiday event as an example or two.

Those decisions will be made in the next several weeks. But that's the outlook on that front. In terms of CapEx, we're still expecting that our spend is going to be in that $400 million to $425 million range for the calendar year 2026 versus a cash spend this past year of closer to $475 million. And interest is in the -- expected to be in the $135 million, $145 million range.

Okay. Got you. And then second question. Back to you, John. You mentioned in your prepared remarks, you have a history of working with so-called underperforming parks. So as you've kind of had the chance now to go through the portfolio, it sounds like you've been to about half of the portfolio at this point. What would you say as you kind of think about the underperforming parks, what are some of the top 2, 3, 4 things that you can identify and potentially make changes to? I'm not sure that makes sense, but hopefully it does.

Yes. I think it's a good question. So I'd say the top takeaway I have, as I've toured the parks and then as we've -- Brian and I and the teams in the parks and in the Park Support Center here, is that the issues are not systemic. The issues are market-by-market park by park. And for example, we have parks where price -- maybe price was an issue in terms of lost opportunity. We have parks where attendance was an issue and we have parks where cost was an issue. And then we have parks that -- where two of those factors were a factor.

So I think the key for us is to approach these parks issue by issue and to address it that way. And so that's how we're approaching the 2026 plans for these parks. It's not systemic. In some parks, we have opportunities. And for example, as I travel to Mexico. I mean this is a great park in a great market with great weather. And so for example, we think in Mexico is a place to lean in and we're going to add over 20 operating days in Mexico. So it really is case by case. That's a different situation than many other parks. So it really varies by site.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Thomas Yeh of Morgan Stanley.

I wanted to ask about the particular strength in per caps in 4Q. I know the shoulder season has some mix factors to it. But can you maybe just talk about the sustainability of that growth? And Brian, I think you mentioned past uptake improvement, just recognizing it's still early in the cycle, just relative to last year, can you share how units in pricing are pacing on a blended basis, given some of the uptake on the higher-priced regional passes?

Yes. Maybe I'll start with the latter, Thomas, and then John can provide some color after that. But on the season pass side, we're not going to give specific metrics at this point in large part because it is a small sample size. And I think sometimes the law of small numbers, right, some of these percentage year-over-year variances can be a little less informative than not. But we are encouraged not only by the volume and the pickup in that, but also with the reconstructive architecture of the past. As we talked about even last year, moving over to a single unified ticketing platform is going to give us more opportunity, more flexibility around things like the regional pass.

We're seeing folks migrate up to more higher-priced products, I guess, I'd say it that way. And that's certainly helping at certain parks in regards to that average price. Now not all of our parks are in operation right now, as you know, Thomas. And so that you've got not only a small sample size in terms of window of time, but also in terms of the parks that are in play. So there's more work to be done, but the team is very encouraged by the early signs there.

In terms of per cap, again, very encouraging. Fourth quarter is not -- especially as you get deeper into the quarter, not nearly as meaningful in terms of the number of parks in operation or the total number of days let's say, the third quarter but seeing the impact of some of the late season changes we made around promotions and pricing benefiting the admissions per cap as well as then seeing guests continuing to spend inside the park on those in-park products like food and beverage, extra charge attractions to name a couple, it's very encouraging. And I think it supports what John said before, which is we don't see a problem with the consumer or the health of the consumer. They are spending when they visit our parks. And our job is to just continue to find ways to improve that demand level.

And I'd say -- this is John again. The -- as we said, the solid spending that we saw is a sign that the revenue engine is intact, along with the regional path that we've laid out. But I would -- I'm taking the fourth quarter in-park per caps with a bit of caution because there's a lot of change in there, with the reduction of the events, with the reduction of the operating days, with the change in both the mix of visitors by ticketing category because of the loss of the events and the mix of parks because of the loss of events. So as we look at 2026, we expect growth in our in-park spending, but I think we're going to be careful about modeling what we saw in Q4 going forward because of that sort of noise in the quarter.

Okay. Understood. That's very helpful. And then one last one, just on the point about optimizing the investment structure. I wonder if you could just drill down a bit more on planned marketing spend? Last year, I think you leaned into areas that didn't stimulate as much demand as you desired. Just maybe any insights on unpacking the right level for that, was it an allocation issue or was it just kind of marketing into a weather situation that was the problem? How would you approach kind of taking that into the new season?

Yes. So I'd look at a couple of factors when we look at our marketing spending. I would look at, number one, the timing of the spend is something that's under evaluation. So we need to be sure that we're putting it in the right period of year that gives us the highest return on the ad spend. So that's one thing that's under review. We also have to look at the in terms of the power of the return on marketing, we have to look at the quality of creative. So the team is doing a lot of work to address some creative that they don't feel was as effective as it should have been in last year.

And then finally, in terms of our marketing spend, just more in a general sense, we have to look at our mix of awareness versus conversion spend. And one of the really great things about these parks is we have very high unaided awareness in our markets, but we're doing a lot of awareness marketing. And we think there's an opportunity to move more of our spend into dedicated conversion. So those are just three more general factors if it helps that are some of the work underway.

Next question comes from the line of Adam [indiscernible] Securities on Truist Securities.

This is Adam on for Patrick Scholes. Just wondering if there's anything -- going back to the park optimization efforts, if there's anything you can share about Enchanted Park Holdings in particular?

Yes, Adam, we don't have anything to share today on that front.

Our last question for today comes from the line of Anthony Braine of Jefferies.

This is Anthony on for David Katz. The first one is, can you talk a little bit about your capital allocation priorities? How should we weigh deleveraging versus CapEx spend? And on CapEx, can you provide any ROIC targets that you have for that spending?

This is John. I'll start out. First, what I would say is we have sufficient flexibility in our CapEx spend. Once we look at what's required for maintenance, which we would always do. The remainder, there's a lot of discretion in terms of attraction investments and other investments. I'd say in terms of a change in focus or an accelerated change in focus would be CapEx tied to efficiency and automation that we talked about early but we feel, overall, we have a good amount of flexibility in the plan even when we address the maintenance CapEx as a given.

Yes. I think, Anthony, just maybe adding on to that. As we been very clear in addition to continuing to reinvest in the parks and to drive growth, to mine more of those cost efficiencies, as John just mentioned. We're looking to -- those projects, we're going to focus those on our highest and best ROI, certainly looking to exceed our weighted average cost of capital in any of those investments. But our priority, in addition to growing the business through the right level, and we think that the $400 million to $425 million for plan for 2026 includes a very attractive and comprehensive capital program. Beyond that, it's continuing to funnel all of our excess free cash flow back towards paying down debt until we get net leverage back inside of 4x on a sustained level.

Okay. Very helpful. And just a quick follow-up. D&A was a little elevated this quarter. It seems it was due to some changes in accounting. Should we expect this to be sort of the new run rate for G&A? Or was this a onetime change?

Yes. I would say you're right. I mean it is a little bit of accounting noise related to some purchase price adjustments on some of the legacy Six Flags parks as well as an accounting change related to the Cedar side -- the legacy Cedar side of the ledger. I think at this point in time, sans any significant change in the asset base that, that's sort of the normalized run rate for the go forward.

That concludes today's question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Michael Russell for closing remarks.

Thanks again, everybody, for joining us today. Our next earnings call will be in early May when we will report our financial results for our 2026 first quarter. Elli, that concludes our call today. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you for attending today's call, you may now disconnect. Goodbye, everyone.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Carlie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Six Flags Entertainment Corporation 2025 Third Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to turn the call over to Six Flags management. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Carlie, and good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Russell, Corporate Director of Investor Relations for Six Flags. Welcome to today's earnings call to review Six Flags Entertainment Corporation's 2025 Third Quarter Financial Results. Earlier this morning, we distributed via wire service our earnings press release, a copy of which is also available under the News tab of our Investor Relations website at investors.sixflags.com. We have also posted a presentation deck that can be accessed either on the webcast page for today's call or on our IR website's presentation page. The slides offer supplemental information specific to our consolidated results and park portfolio, all of which will be discussed on today's call.

Before we begin, I need to remind you that comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those described in such statements. For a more detailed discussion of these risks, you may refer to the company's filings with the SEC. In compliance with the SEC Regulation FD, this webcast is being made available to the media and the general public as well as analysts and investors. Because the webcast is open to all constituents and prior notification has been widely and unselectively disseminated, all content on this call will be considered fully disclosed.

On the call with me this morning are Six Flags Chief Executive Officer, Richard Zimmerman; and Chief Financial Officer, Brian Witherow. With that, I'll turn the call over to Richard.

Thanks, Michael. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Today, as we discuss our third quarter results and our expectation for the remainder of the year, I want to acknowledge at the outset that our performance in 2025 has fallen short of our expectations. While we delivered year-over-year attendance growth during the critical third quarter and continue to make meaningful progress on our integration efforts, softer-than-expected demand in September offset much of the momentum we had built in July and August, leading to approximately flat third quarter EBITDA year-over-year.

While the 2025 season has been defined by volatility, I remain encouraged by the underlying strength of our business and believe the lessons we're taking from this period help lay the foundation for future success. Even in a year like this one that has challenged our execution and tested our operating model, we have gained deeper clarity about where the portfolio is strongest, where it needs refinement and how we can adapt to challenges and evolve our approach to unlock the full potential of the company. Before we dive into our operating results, and I turn things over to Brian, I want to discuss our ongoing constructive engagement with a group led by JANA Partners, which includes football superstar Travis Kelce.

Six Flags has always been open to discussing strategy and opportunities with shareholders. And in that regard, the situation is no different. What is different is the magnitude of consumer interest and response that we have seen following the announcement and that the group has invested in Six Flags. This reaction reinforces our confidence that Six Flags is as exciting and relevant as ever. Six Flags remains a beloved brand, and we are pleased that it is part of the national conversation. We intend to build on that momentum and capitalize on the interest in the company for the 2026 season. We'll have more to say about that on future calls, so stay tuned. Now let me turn the call over to Brian to provide more context around our third quarter and year-to-date results. Brian?

Thanks, Richard, and good morning, everyone. As Michael mentioned at the outset of the call, in addition to our earnings release, we posted a supplemental presentation on our website, which provides more context around our operating results and which I will reference during my prepared remarks. With that said, let me start with a review of our third quarter results. Starting with Slide 3 in the presentation. For the quarter, we delivered modified EBITDA of approximately $580 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $550 million on attendance of 21.1 million guests and revenues of $1.32 billion. The $555 million of adjusted EBITDA was essentially in line with the third quarter last year with attendance up 1% and revenues down 2%.

The quarter began on a strong note. Combined attendance in July and August increased approximately 2% or 300,000 visits and guest satisfaction scores continue to improve with our brand-leading parks performing at a high level. However, following Labor Day weekend, we saw a downturn in demand trends as attendance for the month of September declined approximately 5% or roughly 160,000 visits from September last year. This resulted in a 5% decline in net revenues for the month compared to the prior year. Despite the substantial change in attendance trends, we stayed the course and maintained our initiatives and planned level of OpEx reinvestment in many of our parks. Combined with the shortfall in September revenues, this negatively impacted third quarter EBITDA by approximately $20 million.

Stepping back, we believe the third quarter results offer a more relevant picture of the underlying business trends compared to the previous quarter. Third quarter results somewhat isolate the severe second quarter weather, which impacted operations, negatively affected demand and disrupted the pace of season pass sales and visitation over the entirety of the core season. Despite those challenges, the third quarter underscores the strength of our best-performing parks. It also highlights those parks that require a fresh strategic approach.

With that as the backdrop, please turn to Slide 4. During the 2025 season, we have learned an extraordinary amount about our individual parks. It has, in many ways, been a tale of 2 cohorts. Year-to-date, certain parks representing approximately 70% of property level EBITDA have continued to outperform, while parks representing roughly 30% of property level EBITDA have underperformed. As we've gathered more information and learn more about our underperforming parks, we've gained a clear understanding as to what it takes to turn around most of these properties. Some of these underperforming parks have become non-core to our strategy. And as we've discussed before, we are looking to monetize them.

As we move forward, if certain underperforming parks don't respond to our initiatives, we will consider rationalizing our investments in those properties and deem them to be non-core. The bifurcation of outperformers and underperformance is not simply a matter of geography or legacy ownership. It speaks to differences in how our parks are perceived by consumers, which we call brand strength as well as consumer affinity, historical investment patterns and local competitive dynamics. In 2025, we implemented our playbook aggressively in the underperforming parks and invested ahead of attendance growth.

Our initiatives included increasing both operating expenses and select promotions, including changes to ticket prices and bring-a-friend offers. Based on past experience, these investments often yield immediate results in attendance growth. Unfortunately, in other cases, it can take time to see a change in consumer perception and growth in demand. We've been actively reviewing each park in our portfolio as we work to optimize revenues, operating costs and capital expenditures going forward.

Turning to Slide 5. Through the first 9 months of the year, the outperforming parks in the portfolio have generated incremental modified EBITDA on essentially flat attendance year-over-year. We believe the performance of these parks would be even stronger absent the significant impact of severe weather in the second quarter and the disruption in season pass sales during the critical May, June time frame. Our underperforming parks tell a different story. Through the first 9 months of 2025, modified EBITDA declined as a result of lower attendance and increasing operating expenses. However, we deliberately increased operating expenses to reflect necessary maintenance investments to ensure ride up times in these parks are up to our standards.

We made significant progress in this area, but did not yet achieve the commensurate uplift in profits we were targeting. Going forward, we intend to be more nimble and strategic in allocating investment dollars, focusing only on our highest potential underperforming parks and the strongest opportunities to deliver near-term returns.

Turning to Slide 6. Performance of the outperforming group of parks was even better during the third quarter. Modified EBITDA for these parks increased double digits, driven in large part by a 5% increase in combined attendance. Third quarter results at these parks were broadly in line with the expectations embedded in our original 2025 guidance, and their performance reaffirms their long-term strategic and financial importance to the company. In the third quarter, our underperforming parks saw attendance decline 5%, although we were able to better protect margin erosion through critical adjustments to variable costs, thereby limiting the modified EBITDA declines.

Finally, for all portfolio parks, our third quarter results were also impacted by shifting advertising expenses. We reallocated ad spend from the third quarter to the first half of the year, which helped lower third quarter operating expenses, but most likely also affected demand and impaired our top line during the quarter.

Turning to Slide 7, you'll see a good example of a single outperforming park and an underperforming park. Note that both parks began the year with similar margins and both experienced flat attendance year-to-date. Yet as you can tell from the chart, profitability between the parks vary widely. The park on the left, the outperforming location, had been historically well maintained with a loyal customer base that was able to withstand any adversity we face throughout the season. Here, we were able to leverage our reputation and minimize costs without impacting consumer demand or the guest experience. The result is that EBITDA grew 14% and margin improved from 43% to 47%.

The park on the right is an underperforming location where we made significant investments in 2025 to address deferred investment needs and support multiyear attendance and EBITDA growth. The nature of the business is that we invest in maintenance and labor expenses in advance of top line attendance and revenue growth to improve customer satisfaction and enhance brand perception. The result is that year-to-date EBITDA at this property fell significantly and margin contracted from 44% to 29%, an unacceptable long-term margin for a park of its scale. However, while profitability clearly remains challenged, we remain excited about the opportunity to drive long-term growth within the portfolio.

Our parks are located in attractive high population DMAs, which provide a substantial runway for future attendance growth. As reflected on Slide 8, the largest properties in the underperforming cohort of our portfolio have room to double their penetration rates before reaching the levels we are currently achieving at the largest parks in our outperforming cohort. We also see similar opportunity to increase profitability at these underperforming properties.

Turning to Slide 9. Despite not seeing the near-term economic return on every one of our 2025 initiatives, we are beginning to see leading indicators turn positive, and we are excited about the potential upside here. As we look ahead, our road map for the underperforming parks centers on 2 primary pathways: migrating those parks toward the performance profile of our best parks within the portfolio or classifying them as non-core and divesting them where it makes strategic and financial sense. We're approaching this process with objectivity and discipline. We are reevaluating pricing strategies, operating cost structures, capital allocation plans and long-term market potential. These evaluations are underway with the full support of our Board.

We are committed to making decisions that strengthen the long-term health of the company even when those decisions are difficult. This isn't new for us. Remember that we have already taken actions to monetize real estate in Northern California, Bowie, Maryland and Richmond, Virginia. Let's quickly touch on October results and our most recent performance trends. Based on preliminary operating results, attendance over the 5-week period end November 2 totaled 5.8 million guests. This represents an 11% decline in attendance versus October last year. However, we think it's important to consider the comparison to 2023 as last year's results benefited from a 5-week weather pattern that was nearly perfect. And as a result, October attendance was up 20% in 2024. Therefore, we believe that 2023 offers a more relevant comparison to assess the current period performance.

Against that same 5-week period in 2023, we showed a 7% increase in attendance this October. We find it very encouraging that when compared to October of 2023, results at our outperforming parks were up 11% and the underperforming parks were up 4%. One final note on October performance. In early September, based on the strong attendance trends coming out of July and August, we thought we were well positioned to match last year's October results as we have seen consistent growth in demand for our fall events, and we added both incremental operating days and new IP themed attractions to drive demand this year. However, the difficult comparison to last year's record performance, coupled with our pullback in advertising spend, made our October goals a bridge too far.

Based on these results, we are revising our full year outlook. Our updated range reflects discipline, transparency and a realistic assessment of the conditions affecting the business in the back half of the year. It also creates a more stable foundation as we refocus our efforts and reposition for the 2026 season. Based on our updated outlook for the last 2 months of the year, we now expect to deliver full year adjusted EBITDA of $780 million to $805 million.

From a balance sheet perspective, our priority is to enhance financial flexibility and improve free cash flow generation. We intend to do this both through organic growth in our core properties and through potential strategic asset sales. We have no meaningful debt maturities until early 2027, and we have adequate liquidity to address near-term cash obligations. And despite this year's challenges, we remain comfortably within our covenant requirements. We currently sit at approximately 3x secured leverage, giving us substantial cushion against our first lien leverage covenant, which steps down to 5x at year-end.

Despite the performance volatility over the course of this year, we believe the regional amusement park business remains fundamentally solid as evidenced by the results of our high-performing parks this year. Several of these parks are on track to record or near record performances. These results underscore the long-term viability of the business model and reaffirm the central thesis behind our strategy. When we invest in product quality, operational reliability and the guest experience, consumer demand follows. Our approach coming into 2025 was rooted in a desire to drive recovery as quickly as possible in parks with long-standing demand challenges.

We made strategic decisions based on the historical success of implementing our playbook across the portfolio. But in some markets, the pace of change exceeded what our consumers were prepared to absorb within a single season. This reflects the evolving nature of guest behavior and the importance of calibrating change at a market-specific level. As we move forward to 2026, this learning is already reshaping our approach around an understanding that pricing changes, promotions and programming must be phased in sequence with greater precision.

Looking ahead to 2026, we are focused on taking the learnings from this past season to inform our strategic initiatives and our priorities. We are reassessing our marketing approach with a focus on returning to fundamentals. That includes reevaluating the allocation of marketing spend by park and channel, improving the pacing of that spend to more effectively align with the seasonal demand curves and sharpening messaging so that it resonates more precisely with consumers in each unique market.

Additionally, our integration work remains on track and is yielding meaningful benefits. We have standardized core safety, security and operational protocols across the portfolio, critical steps in the integration process. Earlier this week, we launched our new website, a single unified digital home that brings together what were once 2 separate companies and more than 15 different websites. The launch represents more than just a new look. It's a major step forward in how we present ourselves as one brand and one team.

The new website offers a seamless experience for our guests as well as an entirely new platform for the business. It's a platform built to grow with us, which is scalable, data-driven and optimized for evolving needs of the enterprise. In addition, by year-end, all parks will be operating on a unified ticketing platform, an essential component of our future revenue and demand management strategies. And as we move into early 2026, we will complete the migration to a single enterprise resource planning or ERP system, which will deliver material administrative efficiencies and strengthen the infrastructure supporting our next phase of growth.

As we tailor our operating plan for 2026, the long-term fundamentals of this business remain solid. We have a core set of highly competitive top-performing parks, a valuable real estate base and a clear understanding of where strategic focus and calibrated investment will have the greatest impact. We have strengthened our operating and technological foundation, and we are better equipped than at any point in the merger process to drive consistency, stability and long-term value creation. Although 2025 has been a difficult year, it's also brought clarity and direction. The insights we gained are already shaping a more disciplined, data-driven and market-specific strategy for 2026.

And while the road ahead will require focus and execution, the building blocks for long-term success are firmly in place. We remain confident in the company's prospects for shareholder value creation. Before concluding my remarks, I'd just like to offer a note of thanks to Richard, whose leadership and discipline through this transformative period in our history has set the stage for the company's next chapter of success. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Richard.

Thank you, Brian. As we conclude today's call and I prepare to transition out of the CEO role, I want to speak directly to the realities of our performance and to the opportunities that lie ahead for this company. While we have not yet achieved all we set out to deliver following the merger, the underlying thesis has not changed. We've built a stronger foundation, modernized core capabilities and position Six Flags to operate with greater discipline, better intelligence and a clearer sense of where value will be created. That work is real, and it will endure.

This year has challenged every assumption and tested every plan, but challenges tend to reveal the fundamentals and the fundamentals here at Six Flags remain sound. I've spent 4 decades in this industry, and I have seen how quickly momentum can return when strategy, capital and execution all align. Our assets are unique, our operating platform is improving and the long-term demand profile for regional entertainment remains intact. We also know something else to be true. When we invest with focus and creativity, guests respond. This team has consistently demonstrated its ability to reenergize markets, elevate product quality and deliver experiences that drive both attendance and pricing power. Those are muscles this organization knows how to use, and they will be central to its next era of growth.

To our shareholders and investment partners, I understand the scrutiny and I understand the expectations. Over this past year, this management team is focused on addressing structural issues, prioritizing initiatives with the highest return and positioning the company to translate that progress into sustained financial performance. Despite our short-term challenges, the core value proposition of this business remains durable, repeatable and underpinned by assets that are not easily replicated. To our park teams and associates, you are the constant in this business. Your work day in and day out is the reason this company has outperformed, recovered quickly from downturns and earned the trust of millions of guests. You are the differentiator.

It has been the honor of a lifetime to be trusted to lead this great organization. Thank you for giving me that opportunity. And lastly, I'd also like to thank my wife, [ Carolyn ], of 40 years for her love and support. And with that, we'll open the line up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Steve Wieczynski with Stifel.

So a couple of questions here. I guess, first of all, when you guys talked about these outperforming parks versus the underperforming parks, can you actually maybe help us and quantify how many of your parks you're considering these days outperforming versus underperforming? And if we think about some of those underperforming parks, are any of those parks EBITDA negative right now?

Yes, Steve, it's Brian. We're not going to break out the number of properties that sit in each side other than as we said in our prepared remarks and it was represented in the slide deck, those outperforming parks represent 70% of EBITDA year-to-date in 2025, closer to 60% last year. The underperforming parks would contain the lion's share of the small properties within the portfolio. And some of those parks are maybe in low single digits when it comes to millions of dollars of EBITDA that they generate. But beyond that, we're not going to provide any more specifics on the names or the numbers of parks in each cohort.

Okay. Got you. And then second question, if we go back to February, when you initially gave guidance for the year, which was -- I think it was $1.1 billion at the midpoint. And now we sit here at, let's call it, close to $800 million at the midpoint. Obviously, that's a $300 million difference. Is there any way you can bridge that $300 million delta? Meaning how much of that delta do you attribute to weather versus other factors, whether that's cost or just macro headwinds? Anything you could do to kind of bridge that would be helpful.

Yes, Steve. Listen, as we look at this year, I appreciate the question. There's been a lot of volatility in the year. This has been the year that seems like it's several years rolled into one. So it seems like there's been a lot of challenges throughout that. I think as we look at that, and I'll let Brian weigh in here, I go back to the point that Brian just made. as we've walked through this year, we've tried to really calibrate what we needed to do to build a strong foundation for the future and start to see that demand come back and focus on that market penetration in the underperforming markets where we think the greatest opportunity is. Brian?

Yes. Without getting into specifics, Steve, in terms of numbers, we're not going to go to that level of detail. But as you know, you've been around the business a long time, and this industry is all built around attendance. I think our expectations coming into this year were for more potential than clearly the business was able to deliver this year, which is why we need to take -- we're taking a step back and we're reevaluating each one of these parks, where they -- current status, what the potential is and what the effort is to get them up to where we know they can be long term. But the majority of this miss is an attendance-driven miss in 2025.

Okay. Got you. And Richard enjoyed working with you and best of luck.

Your next question comes from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer & Company.

I wanted to also ask about the underperforming parks. I think initially, we identified them as parks didn't really contribute as much, then they became underperforming. At what point do they then become, I guess, non-core? Are there like specific metrics or bogeys you're looking at? And how much time are you willing to spend on fixing these parks before, again, they become maybe more non-core?

Yes, Ian, I understand the question. What I would say is that, as Brian said in his prepared remarks, this is an ongoing process. We're trying to factor in all the latest data. When you look at the overall portfolio, I think we're going through that evaluation. And it really depends on how fast we think we can ramp up the demand and what we see as demand in each market by market specific, but that's an ongoing process right now, and we're refining those criteria with the Board.

Okay. And then just as a follow-up on the CEO search. Maybe give us an update there. What type of qualities are you looking for? And then how would you maybe wrap that around one of your newest investors, Travis Kelce?

Here's what I will say. The Board has had a very diligent process ongoing headed by our non-gov committee, Arik Ruchim. And I've been encouraged by the quality of the candidates, the level of interest. And I think that as the Board works through that process, they'll have more to say in the near future, but that's about all I can comment on at this point.

Your next question comes from Ben Chaiken with Mizuho.

I guess the first one is just maybe for within the year. The remaining of Q4, unless I'm mistaken, has around 60 less operating days than the prior year. You helped us with October. Can you maybe help us with the expectations for attendance for the remainder of the year that you've baked in the guidance, maybe what the range of outcomes are for the low and high end of EBITDA?

Yes, Ben, it's Brian. Based on what we've seen in September and October and quite frankly, in all honesty, the miss in our expectations of what we could achieve in October, we're trying to be as prudent as possible in our outlook for November and December as we want to live up to those obligations to the Street and these updated guidance range that we put out there. November and December are smaller months. So I think there's a little bit of a higher confidence level in terms of predictability.

But we've assumed anywhere from flat to down mid-single digits. I think October, the bar was very high last year. That's not so much the case in November, December. But I think -- which is why you sort of sort to a flat year-over-year. At mid-single digits, that would incorporate a little bit of those same kind of headwinds we saw in October playing out. But maybe just to put it into perspective for you, for each 1 percentage shift in attendance over that 2-month window, that would equate to approximately $3 million in EBITDA over the last 2 months of the year.

Okay. Maybe just a follow-up there because I think on the last call, you mentioned and maybe I'm conflating or mixing up numbers, but I think you said that there was a $500,000 attendance impact because of the operating days towards the end of the year. And I'm just thinking like if you -- again, maybe that's just like wrong, but if you're having 500,000 from removing operating days, how would...

Yes. No, that's fair question. Fair follow-up, Ben. The 500 -- my comment on the flat to mid-single digits was on the apples-to-apples comparable operating days. You're exactly right. There's a little bit inside of 500,000 visits associated with 4 winter holiday events that we're unplugging that sit on top of that. So when we're looking at the operating days that we will have at the parks this year versus the comparable days last year, that's the flat to down mid-single digits. There is another loss of attendance associated with those winter events, which will lead to closed days this year versus open days last year.

Understood. And then maybe back to the underperforming parks. I mean what's the time line that you need to make these decisions here? Like you've kind of seen the performance this year, you guys are able to cut the data on what is weather, what is not? Like is this something that you think within the next 12 months, you'll have an idea of what assets are staying and what assets are going? Or what's the expectation?

Yes. Well, I think we already have a real -- a pretty good idea of which are the low-hanging fruit when it comes to non-core versus strategic assets going forward. We're moving with a sense of urgency on that process as we're building out our 2026 plans. As we said in our prepared remarks, as parks -- as we roll into '26 and we see how parks perform, there may be a need to pivot in a park that we consider core right now, if we're not seeing the returns on that, we need to remain nimble and shift our thinking that a core park today could become a non-core park going forward. But I think we have a really good idea of which parks fit into which bucket where we stand today, and we'll continue to refine our thinking as we see the business evolve.

Okay. And if I can just sneak one quick one in. I think legacy Six Flags highlighted 4Q '23 as having some weather in it. I know you guys gave that as a comparison period. I just don't know if that was -- if the weather was in October or November. Clearly, you guys think it's a better comp, but just maybe a few comments there.

Yes. I think as you look at and comparing into these years, right, what you're highlighting, Ben, is that there's always those macro factors that are at play. '24 was outstanding 5 weeks. '23 did have a little bit of a disruption. Within the portfolio, it was a bit more maybe meaningful for the stand-alone Six Flags entity than on a combined basis. And so this year's weather was probably fairly comparable. We had issues this year with weather across the system. Again, you're not going to hear us lean on that as an excuse. But I'd say that '23 weather impact was certainly more impactful to Six Flags stand-alone than maybe the combined attendance of the Newco Six Flags.

Your next question comes from Thomas Yeh with Morgan Stanley.

Yes. Just following up on the underperforming parks piece. It appeared in that one example that price discounting and cost investments didn't really deliver on the attendance growth side. So what's the time line on ROI that you would expect on OpEx investments before deeming it as non-core? And how should we think about maybe just the threshold on investments in an aggregate sense if we can reframe that within the broader OpEx and CapEx targets that you laid out at your Investor Day. I believe this year, you had expected it to decline 3%, excluding COGS.

Yes, Thomas, I'll take the first part. I'll let Brian take the second part. But when we think about demand in any specific market, we've always talked about the dynamic pricing. We really go in and look at where we see demand. And when we make these investments, what we've seen in the past in parks that we've sort of relaunched and reenergized is you start to get traction in year 1, you see more impact in year 2. And then by year 3, you're really running. So as we think about the ramp of it, I go to the last page of the deck, which really showed the metrics that we're trying to monitor that speak to guest satisfaction, guests coming back. Part of this is making sure, as I've always said to the general managers and the folks that run our parks, the greatest measure of your success is not what you do this year, but it's whether your guest comes back this -- next year and how you build a foundation of higher attendance in the future. Brian?

Yes. As I think, Thomas, about -- specifically about the cost side of things, we are working through the process right now of building out our expectations, as I said in my prepared remarks, on a park-by-park basis. We're going to focus on where those returns on those investments are the greatest and the opportunities are the highest. We're going to prioritize certain parks over other parks. I do think we took a significant step in the right direction this year in rightsizing the cost structure, staying true to the strategy and the initiatives that we deployed at the beginning of the year despite some headwinds around demand. We didn't veer dramatically off course. And so that was a major step in the right direction.

We'll assess park by park, each park's capital and OpEx needs going forward and focus our cash spend where those returns will be greatest. As it relates to our expectations for the full year in terms of costs, I think we've continued to deliver where we've had more control. A lot of progress made around labor costs as an example. In other areas of the business, we've seen some more headwinds that were unanticipated, areas like self-insurance reserves, utility costs, things are a little bit more out of our control, property taxes. That's been a little bit more pressure on the business over the course of the year, particularly in the second half than we had necessarily anticipated earlier in the year.

Okay. Understood. And can you dig into the drivers of September moderation in attendance? Any macro level signs on consumer softness? I think last quarter, you mentioned some low-end consumer weakness at the margin in addition to the weather, obviously. So how did that evolve over the course of the last few months?

Yes. I think those macro factors are things that we're always focused on. I'm not going to blame the attendance shortfalls entirely on that. I think attribution is a little hard in the middle of any season. At the end of the season, it's a little bit easier to look back and see over time what might have been at play. There are some missteps. We have to own the decisions that we've made. Not all of our advertising program was as effective as it needed to be. Some of the pricing changes, as I said in my prepared remarks, we may have moved a little too fast and a little too far on some of trying to harmonize and bring some of the Six Flags parks in our system in line with the Cedar Fair pricing structure and program structure around things like season pass.

So it's some missteps by management. Those are things that are very correctable and things that we'll be focused on. And we'll continue to just watch the broader macro backdrop. I think we said it on the second quarter call, we knew that the disruption of season pass sales because of the weather in May and June was going to be a bit of a headwind for us over the balance of the year. I think that does play out in these third quarter numbers a bit September and even a little bit in October as well.

Got it. Maybe last one, just on season pass adoption to your point, the pricing that's pacing up 5%, is that a reflection of the harmonization that you just mentioned? Or are you seeing maybe just higher uptake on some of the higher tiered pricing products?

Yes. It's a combination of those 2 things, Thomas. It's a little bit of mix. Folks through the promotions that were -- that we have out there and the pricing structure in place, people migrating up the stack a little bit. We're not satisfied with where season pass sales are at every one of our parks. A lot of work being done by the team behind the scenes as we prepare for the next big sales window, which is spring 2026. I would expect that there'll be changes in how we're marketing those programs as well as what the makeup and pricing structure is as we go forward and try and drive better sales figures over the balance of the program.

And Thomas, let me jump in here and say that I don't want to underplay in any way getting the entire portfolio on a single ticketing system. We've always talked about our CRM system and how we engage with our guests. That will be available to us in the spring as we get into the big spring sales cycle. So I'm really excited to see how the unified backbone of our technology will help us as we get into '26.

Your next question comes from Arpine Kocharyan with UBS.

You talked about product initiatives sort of outpacing consumers' ability to really absorb those changes in your slides in a single season. What does that exactly mean? Is it mainly about pricing? And how does that change into 2026? And do you also expect a significant reduction in your CapEx for 2026?

Yes, Arpine, it's Brian. Let me maybe take it backwards and work to your -- that direction. In terms of CapEx, we had already talked about a skinnying up of the '26 capital program that was more so being driven by some challenges time line-wise relative to a couple of big projects. As we've, I think, talked about on previous calls, the lead time of some of these big attractions has gotten elongated for a lot of different reasons that complicate the process, everything from permitting to getting product from overseas in today's environment. And so we had talked about pulling our capital program back by about $100 million relative to what we had originally thought, maybe, say, 12 or 18 months ago.

So that -- no further changes beyond that. We will continue to evaluate our capital programs for '26 and '27, always trying to be as efficient and optimized as possible, but no other changes to note on that. In terms of the comment about the consumer, I think it's across a number of layers, Arpine. It's not just pricing. It's the structure, it's how we communicate with the customers. I think we take a step back and we evaluate [ '25 ] and the decisions we made, we can be a little critical, self-critical of the decisions that we made from a standpoint of markets get trained. And by that, I mean consumers get used to a certain structure of communication, when things go on sale, how we're even messaging in advertising as well as the structure of the product.

I think in some cases, not necessarily every park, but certainly some parks in the portfolio, we maybe went too fast, too far and deviated from a lesson that we've learned in the past, which is you don't want to shock the market and you don't want to disrupt what they're used to. And so we're going back in and reviewing all that. I think there'll be adjustments. There'll be changes as we go into 2026 as we attempt to rightsize some of those disruptions that we saw this past year.

Great. That's helpful. And to go back to your strategic review of the portfolio, what are the biggest hurdles? Is it just deciding what is core versus non-core and just -- or just transaction market and ability to absorb kind of portfolio type sales? Or can you look at more alternative uses for these assets? Like what are some of the big hurdles and where you are -- how you're looking at that at this point?

Yes, I think when you look at the portfolio of parks, and we talked about this all the way back to when we completed the merger that as a combined company of this scale, the ability to sell off and monetize parks that weren't going to contribute a great deal of growth, maybe nice parks from a standpoint of what we would consider the little mini cash cows, so to speak, parks that don't require a lot of capital, generates a nice amount of EBITDA and throw off cash flow.

Those had a home, I think, in both stand-alone portfolios in a bigger company where we're trying to narrow our focus and shrink our capital needs as well as our risk or our liability exposures, getting the portfolio smaller and more nimble is a priority. And so we're going to look at the parks where our returns are the greatest, where the opportunities for growth are the highest, and we're going to focus on those parks and the other parks we'll look to monetize and use those proceeds to reduce debt.

Your next question comes from Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank.

I guess I'm curious maybe you can share with us how much, I guess, data collection or survey work you do with your customers, I guess, maybe both kind of before and post visit? And are you seeing any trends in terms of what they're telling you, whether it's a price value or whether it's a content issue? Just trying to get a sense as to how much you're interacting with those guests and if you think you're identifying any big holes in the feedback?

Yes, Chris, we really try and rely on research, both normal research that we do concurrent with our operations. So we always are paying our customers and get that research back on a week-by-week basis. That gives us the NPS, the OSAT scores that we rely on. So we're always constantly getting feedback. On top of that, we do periodic research multiple times a year with our brand tracker and look at how things are evolving in each market. And that's a little more detailed feedback on top of that, and you all have seen in the press over the last several days, we always go out to market and research what are the concepts that would most appeal to different consumers in different markets.

And then lastly, even on top of that, we do ways of research that are specific to maybe some initiatives we have. So we're constantly trying to get as much information back from our consumers. All of it points to the things that we put in our prepared remarks. And again, I go back to that last slide that we showed, which shows the leading indicators. We know what guests come, they want to be able to ride the rides that they come to the park for. We've really improved the uptime. We've got repeat visitors coming back, particularly at the stronger operating parks. So we're not seeing anything in this consumer research that doesn't validate everything that I think we talked about in our prepared remarks. Brian, anything you want to add?

Yes. I'd just maybe add to Richard's comments, Chris, the one theme that has been a constant and maybe it's even echoing a little bit louder in the more recent research is that the consumer is becoming increasingly more value conscious. In a world where out-of-home entertainment options has expanded greatly, while at the same time, discretionary free time and maybe a little bit of discretionary dollars has shrunk, consumers are putting a high priority on only doing those things where they see high value.

I think when you look at the mix of outperforming versus underperforming parks in our portfolio, it supports that tail or that narrative, right? The parks where we have strong brand recognition, strong consumer strength in terms of the perception of cost value, those parks have performed very well this year. The parks where the brand perception or the consumer perception of the park is not as strong that we're working on rightsizing, those parks have been the ones that have struggled.

Okay. Very helpful. And then as a follow-up, a question on marketing. We used to talk not that long ago about kind of the right percentage of CapEx that we need to think about as a percentage of revenue. And I'm kind of wondering, do you think we're now kind of asking that same question, but on marketing, is that number going up significantly? Or do you think that's kind of more exogenous to 2025 in terms of weather issues and economic issues and such?

It's one of the things we're looking at, Chris, as we go through this portfolio review is also what's the right media mix. As we said, we're going to really take a look at that in each market, how do the cost factors, is L.A. and New York, more expensive market than potentially some place like Kansas City or Minneapolis. So we're factoring all those things in to get to the optimal mix for each market. And it will be different by each market, but it's one of the things we're looking at.

Your next question comes from Lizzie Dove with Goldman Sachs.

I wanted to ask about the year ahead. I appreciate that we're still kind of ahead of a new CEO, and this is a multiyear transition story. But as we look to the year ahead, like what are the key kind of building blocks that you would kind of expect to achieve? And any kind of early indicators, maybe it's too early to ask this and just how you're kind of framing up what you can achieve next year in terms of attendance, broad strokes, per caps, anything like that?

Yes, Lizzie, it's Brian. I think it is a little early in terms of putting anything out there as to what we hope to achieve. And even our long lead indicators, the only one that really has any merit at this point is season pass sales. And as we disclosed on the call, we're up in sales a little soft on units with pricing up. And as you would imagine, and as I think I commented before, the performance by park is a little mixed as well.

And so more so what I would say as it relates to '26 is we need to take the learnings from '25, the things that worked at certain parks, the missteps that we made at other properties and use that to drive what our focus is in 2026. So we're not letting the challenges and the missteps of '25 go wasted. I think we need to revise our outlook, and that's what the team's focus, the focus is on at this point.

Got it. That makes sense. And then I think based on where you're kind of guiding to for EBITDA for 4Q, it implies that the per cap exit rate will still be down as well, kind of depends on your assumption on cost, but let's say, somewhere similar in the low single-digit range. Is that the kind of right exit rate? Was there a comp factor there, too? And maybe you can kind of broaden out of just like kind of what you're seeing broadly with the consumer in terms of willingness to spend on ticket or in-park?

Yes. I think, Lizzie, when you look at where the consumer is based on what we're seeing, I'll separate the 2. Guest spending on in-park products, so food and beverage, extra charge, we've remained encouraged by what we've seen there. Of course, that is often influenced by attendance. And so the parks that have performed better at an attendance level, you've heard us talk about the parks being comfortably crowded. The parks that have been done better on that volume metric have also seen a little bit better in-park spend relative to that. But even the parks that have underperformed have still seen good spending for those guests that are showing up.

So I think in-park, we remain encouraged by what we're seeing there. And our focus again, as it's been for most of the last year plus is that it's less about taking price in the park, and it's more about transaction efficiency, better offerings, giving the consumer the options to buy up to higher price, better experiences or products. At the gate, it's a bit of a mixed bag, right? We -- the parks that have -- I'll go back to the earlier question and my comment about the strong consumer perception and the strong brands.

Those parks that have the better reputation or perception with the consumer have the ability to be a bit more aggressive on price. Those that don't, we have to figure out what the right -- what the sweet spot is for those. What we tried this past year with dynamic pricing didn't work in every case. We found that the consumer didn't respond. It wasn't necessarily a price issue. It was more a value proposition. And so there's work to be done on that front.

Your next question comes from Patrick Scholes with Truist Securities.

Just wanted to be a little bit more granular on exact expectations for next year's CapEx spend. I believe in the prior conference call, you had said $400 million. Is that still unchanged? And then with your renewed emphasis of late on outperforming parks versus underperforming parks, within that $400 million, has there been, at this point, any major changes over the last couple of months of how you expect to allocate that $400 million given that renewed emphasis?

Patrick, it's Brian. Yes, for now, our projection still is CapEx spend in calendar year 2026 of approximately $400 million. The mix of that spend has not significantly changed. A lot of the big dollar projects, as I said earlier, are longer lead projects. So those are -- have been in the pipeline and will continue. As some of the smaller projects that have shorter lead times, we will always move those things around. But at this point in time, I wouldn't say that we've deviated dramatically from our plans coming into '25 in preparation for next year.

Your next question comes from James Hardiman with Citi.

But I did want to start by saying, Richard, it's really been a pleasure working with you and learning from your decades of work in the industry and really good luck with what's next.

James, I appreciate that. I've always enjoyed all of our discussions.

Likewise. And so my first question, obviously, there's been a lot of conversation about core versus non-core parks as well as sort of that non-core budget breaking it down between high potential and low potential. I didn't know if there was any way to sort of overlay that conversation with the market value for some of those parks. I guess my question is, how correlated is the performance of the park with what you could get for the park, how you could monetize the park. I would assume that if you're selling it to be an amusement park, those 2 things are highly correlated, whereas if you could find an alternative use for those parks, there could potentially be a mismatch, which could make those decisions a lot easier.

Now obviously, as we think about your D.C. park and your Northern California park, maybe you've already exploited those mismatches between performance and real estate value. But just curious how you would speak to the opportunity and how that impacts the decisions that lie ahead.

Yes, James, it's Brian. I think you sort of answered your question there. The D.C. property and the Santa Clara property were exactly that, right? Parks where we felt that the underlying land outstripped any potential for growth and long-term cash flow generation of those parks based on a number of factors, most notably structural challenges or limitations on the ability to build out those properties. And so I think those were the 2 most obvious. We'll continue to look for more opportunities like we have with the excess land in Richmond.

But for the most part, most of that low-hanging fruit has already been plucked. There are always assets in the portfolio that we get inbounds from that are core critical top-performing parks in our system that happen to sit in great markets with high property values, Toronto, Southern California. But those are parks that are critical to the long-term growth of the business. And I think from that perspective, would not be something at least where we sit today, that we would be interested in pursuing.

Got it. That makes a ton of sense. And then I'm not sure how much of this you're going to answer, and I certainly didn't think I'd be asking this question. But as we think about this JANA Partners, announcement. Obviously, it really moved the needle in terms of the stock. I guess I'm trying to figure out how much it is likely to move the needle in terms of the business. You've had a number of active investors involved with this story off and on for some time now. I think this is the first time maybe you've sort of called out one of them. And suffice it to say, there's a significant brand associated as we think about Travis Kelce.

I guess the question is, do you actually think that Travis Kelce would consider lending his brand to the cause? Is that ultimately what we're talking about here because that, I think, pretty clearly could move the needle. And then to take it even further into the realm of -- you're probably not going to answer this question. But as we think about Travis Kelce's silent partner, could that be part of the brand association given that so much of the conversation is reinvigorating your brand and sort of making it more relevant in today's time.

James, it's Richard. I understand the question. I'll answer this as a guy that grew up in Kansas City and watch the Chiefs win their Super Bowl in 1970. Listen, I think we live in a different world now. Travis Kelce, influencers of that have tremendous followings. And I think part of where all of society is going is figuring out what the new world looks like. I'll go back to my prepared remarks. We've had extremely constructive dialogues on this front. And I think as we think about how to create shareholder value, it starts with the performance of the parks. And listen, I would put any loyal fan that grew up going to our parks, that's our bread and butter or you've heard me talk about the lifetime customer.

Travis Kelce is somebody that's come to our parks in many of our locations and has an affinity for them. So we're going to work very closely with him and his team to make sure that we optimize that opportunity. And I will say, as you said, the interest was enormous, not just in the stock price shooting up, but I think it speaks to -- we live in a different world now and part of -- I've got trust in our team and his team to figure out how we work with them...

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Michael Russell for closing remarks.

Thanks, Carlie, and we appreciate our sell side. Thanks for the good questions today. Feel free to contact our Investor Relations department at (419) 627-2233. And our next earnings call will be held in February of 2026 after the release of our '25 fourth quarter results. Carlie, that concludes today's call. Thank you, everyone.

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.