Six Flags Entertainment - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 seasonally weak results: net revenues $202.06m, net loss $(219.72)m, Adjusted EBITDA loss $(170.79)m, with first-quarter dynamics amplified by calendar/weather and merger-related timing. Management reiterated that Q1 represents ~5.5% of FY attendance and ~6% of FY revenue this year vs the historical ~7% noted in the release.
• Mixed vs consensus: revenue missed ($202.06m vs $232.20m*), but EPS beat (−$2.20 vs −$2.46*) primarily due to a large tax benefit; EBITDA missed consensus (company EBITDA $(217.11)m vs $(126.02)m*), reflecting cost timing, weather, and merger integration costs. Values with asterisks are from S&P Global.
• 2025 outlook maintained: Adjusted EBITDA guidance $1.08–$1.12bn reaffirmed; teams target >3% YoY reduction in operating costs/SG&A (ex-COGS) and plan $475–$500m CapEx in 2025 (similar level in 2026). April-to-date attendance up slightly >1% despite adverse weather; season pass units +6% in the 5 weeks ended May 4.
• Catalysts into summer: expanded operating calendars (adding higher-value days in Q2/Q3), strong new ride slate, accelerated synergy capture (on track for $120m by YE and pursuing +$60m more by 2026), and potential asset monetizations (Maryland parks closure post-2025 season + excess land near Richmond) support medium-term margin/FCF narrative.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Maintained FY25 guide with cost discipline and synergy progress: “maintaining our full year Adjusted EBITDA guidance” and targeting operating costs/SG&A to be more than 3% lower vs combined 2024 actuals; on track to deliver $120m cost synergies by YE (6 months early).
• Early Q2 indicators positive despite weather: 5 weeks ended May 4 attendance +~1%, in-park per cap $66.34 (above Q1), season pass units +6%; price/mix actions continuing with Cedar Fair parks pass pricing expected +3–4% through the cycle.
• Strategic portfolio actions and growth levers: closing Maryland parks after 2025 and marketing excess land in Richmond could unlock >$200m gross proceeds to reduce leverage; strong 2025/2026 capital programs (11 of 14 largest properties with new attractions) to drive attendance and in-park spend.

What Went Wrong

• Top-line shortfall and heavier EBITDA loss: revenue +$100m YoY to $202.06m but below consensus; EBITDA loss of $(217.11)m (company EBITDA) exceeded Street expectations, reflecting weather, event timing (Easter/Boysenberry moved into Q2), and integration/severance/COGS alignment charges.
• Weather and timing drag: April attendance was negatively impacted by ~175k lost visits due to cold/wet conditions; Knott’s Boysenberry Festival shifted into Q2, moving high per-capita days and compressing Q1 in-park per caps at legacy Cedar Fair parks.
• Inflation/interest headwinds and higher D&A: net interest expense rose to $87m (+$53m YoY) largely from merger-acquired debt; D&A +$92m YoY on fair-value step-up and methodology change; COGS % higher due to nonrecurring inventory alignment charge.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Six Flags Entertainment Corporation first quarter 2025 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one a second time. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Six Flags Management. Go ahead, please.

Michael Russell (Corporate Director of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Abby. Good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Russell, Corporate Director of Investor Relations for Six Flags. Welcome to today's earnings call to review our 2025 first quarter financial results for Six Flags Entertainment Corporation. 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. Before I 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's 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.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Thank you, Michael. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I would like to start by sharing my perspective on where we are as we ramp up operations at all 42 of our parks in our fourth full year as the new Six Flags. We are making meaningful progress in tapping the full potential of the merger. We are seeing stronger market response to our exciting new slate of rides and attractions, improving guest satisfaction ratings, and executing on our plans to deliver significant cost savings. I'm very pleased with the pace of the integration work, and I want to thank our teams for their tireless efforts on all fronts over the past several months.

As we noted in our earnings release this morning, our results showed the operating loss that is typical for a seasonal business that has very few parks in operation during the first quarter of the calendar year. While the operating loss in the quarter was greater than the combined loss of the legacy companies in 2024, it was only slightly greater than what we expected in our operating plan and was consistent with the level of off-season investment necessary to prepare our parks to open. Despite the weather and other macro-level challenges we have faced to begin the year, we remain confident in our outlook for the business, and especially in our 2025 operating plan.

Our plan was built around a strategy to minimize lower value operating days, particularly in the first and fourth quarters, maximize the number of operating days in the second and third quarters, and make upfront investments that will enhance the guest experience and drive demand and revenue generation as we head towards the heart of the 2025 operating season. Our confidence is backed by the solid results we generated in April despite recent weather issues, the positive momentum we are seeing in long lead indicators such as season pass sales and school and youth group bookings, and the excitement being generated in our markets by the compelling slate of new rides and attractions we are introducing this year.

While overall April results fell short of expectations due to the recent bout of cold and wet weather, we are nonetheless encouraged with the improving trends we saw, particularly on good weather weekends earlier in the month of April. We are also pleased with the April trends in season pass sales, positive momentum that is encouraging as we head into the peak sales months of May and June, which combined are expected to represent close to 40% of the full year sales cycle. As more parks began to reopen last week, bookings at our resort properties trended higher, up more than 10% versus a comparable week last year, another positive indicator consumers remain engaged as we get closer to daily operations in the peak summer season. Most importantly, we saw no detectable change in guest behaviors in April despite broader market concerns.

When the weather was good, we were encouraged by the strong demand we saw. Our guests continued to demonstrate a willingness to spend on goods and experiences they value, reinforcing our view that high-quality, close-to-home entertainment options like ours are highly resilient, even in a choppy macroeconomic environment. We believe this positions us well to achieve our 2025 performance goals. While the economic landscape remains unclear, we continue to focus on what we can control, executing our merger integration plan, optimizing our cost structure, and enhancing the guest experience to drive demand. We remain firmly on track to achieve the $120 million in merger cost synergies by the end of the year, six months earlier than originally contemplated at the announcement of the merger.

As Brian will outline in a moment and in keeping with our operating plan, we now expect current year operating costs and expenses to be more than 3% lower than combined 2024 actuals for both legacy companies. As part of our cost reduction plan, we are engaged in a corporate restructuring process designed to flatten our organizational structure, streamline decision-making, and drive cost efficiencies. As an example, earlier this month, we eliminated multiple senior executive leadership positions at the corporate level and consolidated functional ownership under a few key leaders. These changes and others we have underway will create new. Have reduced our full-time headcount by more than 10%. Our system-wide reorg effort, along with additional cost-saving initiatives we've identified post-merger, are designed to reset the company's cost base and deliver an incremental $60 million of cost savings above and beyond our original synergy target by the end of 2026.

Before I turn the call over to Brian to review our results in more detail, let me take a moment to address the evolving tariff situation. While recent developments in U.S. trade policy have created marketplace uncertainties, based upon the tariffs as currently outlined, we believe our exposure is relatively limited. The fact that labor represents more than 50% of our operating cost structure inherently minimizes the potential impact of any new tariffs. On the non-labor portion of our cost structure, we believe we are well-positioned to substantially absorb or offset any impact without significantly affecting our cost structure or margin outlook. Naturally, our teams are already actively working with suppliers and sourcing partners, pursuing mitigation strategies to offset these impacts through material substitutions, alternative sourcing, and, where appropriate, pricing adjustments to protect our margins. We will continue to update the market as additional clarity becomes available.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian for a review of our financials. After his remarks, I'll return with some closing thoughts. Brian?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Thank you, Richard, and good morning. I'll begin by providing some additional color on our first quarter and April results before providing an update on select balance sheet items. First, it's important to remember that the first quarter is not indicative of full-year performance. We would normally expect the quarter to represent roughly 7% of full-year attendance and revenues, and we incur considerable costs during the first few months of the year related to preparing our parks to open. The small number of operating days and the higher fixed nature of our early season cost structure limits our upside and makes even small variances' performance look more meaningful than when it really reflects in terms of full-year performance. Based on actual first-quarter results, this year's first-quarter performance tracks closer to approximately 5.5% of full-year attendance and closer to approximately 6% of full-year revenues based on our current full-year outlook.

As we noted in our earnings release this morning, first-quarter results were impacted by operating calendar shifts, including strategic changes that were made to key park events such as the Boysenberry Festival at Knott's Berry Farm, which shifted into the second quarter this year. While coming into the year, we had planned to have approximately five fewer combined operating days in the first quarter compared to last year, we ended the quarter with 14 fewer days, the result of managing our park operating calendars tightly in response to inclement weather and other cost-savings objectives. The fewer operating days, combined with the shift of the Knott's Berry Farm Boysenberry Festival to the second quarter, were the biggest drivers of first-quarter year-over-year attendance and revenue declines.

Timing variances that we expect to reverse in the second and third quarters as we expand our operating calendars, particularly at our parks where the opportunities for attendance growth are the greatest. Looking at April demand trends, which even out some of the early season calendar shifts, attendance over the past five weeks was up a little more than 1% compared to the prior year. This was despite the Midwest being plagued by heavy rain and cooler than normal temperatures over the last two weeks of the month, a strong indication that demand for our parks remains strong when not disrupted by weather. We estimate the impact of weather on April attendance was approximately 175,000 visits. Normalizing for the weather difference, April attendance would have been up approximately 8% on a year-over-year basis. Meanwhile, guest spending trends during the first quarter were also affected by the operating calendar changes.

This led to a mixed shift to lower-priced tickets in the absence of higher-demand events like the Boysenberry Festival, which also shifted higher in-park spending visits into the second quarter. As expected, April per capita trends improved from the first quarter, consistent with the shift in our operating calendars and higher attendance levels. Based on trends to date and the strategic initiatives we have planned for the season, we expect per capita spending to continue to increase as we get deeper into the season and attendance levels move higher and length of guest stays increase. Coming out of the first quarter, we were pleased to see momentum in the sale of season passes and membership strengthen.

The recent robust performance, despite the weather disruptions at the end of April, narrowed the sales gap to prior year to approximately 2% in terms of units sold and 3% in terms of total sales. Shortfalls that our team is focused on closing as we head into the critical May-June sales window. Based on our current program strategies, we expect the average price of a season pass at our legacy Cedar Fair parks to be up 3-4% over the balance of the sales cycle, while the average price at our legacy Six Flags parks is projected to be essentially flat to prior year, the result of changes to the product structure and a mixed shift in pass types sold.

While disappointed to see attendance over the last two weeks of April impacted by weather after building such strong momentum earlier in the month, it's important to note that April only represents roughly 20% of expected second quarter attendance and revenues, meaning there is ample time over the balance of the quarter to build upon the positive demand trends we generated earlier in the month. Based on current park operating calendars, we are expecting to pick up an incremental 37 operating days in May and June, bringing our projected total second quarter operating days to 2,028, up 36 days from the second quarter last year. This should bode well in expanding our opportunities to drive higher levels of attendance and revenues in the quarter. Shifting to the cost side of the business for a moment.

From a cost perspective, our team's delivered results largely aligned with expectations during the first quarter. While there were some anticipated cost timing differences that should reverse over the next two quarters, we expect or we kept controllable variable costs in check without disrupting the guest experience. In the quarter, we incurred $15 million of non-recurring merger-related integration costs and another $5 million of adjusted EBITDA add-backs for costs such as severance and commercial liability settlements. First-quarter operating expenses were largely consistent with expectations. The somewhat higher level of spending was driven by two primary factors. First, a pull forward of pre-opening maintenance work to ensure our parks were prepared and our rides were licensed and ready to open on day one. Second, an increase in early season advertising, a strategic decision to support season pass sales and drive higher demand.

These decisions resulted in an estimated expense timing difference in the quarter of approximately $10 million, which we would expect to reverse over the balance of the year. While remaining nimble in our approach, we are committed to making decisions like these that set us up for much stronger performance as demand builds into the key second and third quarters, which by themselves are expected to represent 95% or more of a full-year adjusted EBITDA. At the same time, as Richard noted, we expect the steps we are taking to optimize our cost structure will reduce full-year operating costs and expenses by more than 3% this year, inclusive of our second year of merger-related synergies. This aggressive cost savings effort is intended to provide some downside protection against any potential weakening in consumer demand this summer.

The targeted cost reductions do not contemplate any potential outsized impacts related to tariffs, which we expect to be minimal based on the available information at this time. As we noted in this morning's earnings release, we are maintaining our full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $1.08 billion-$1.12 billion. Our confidence in our ability to deliver another strong performance this year is underscored by the resilience of our business model, as demonstrated in the past by the rapid recovery from macro events, including the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the COVID disruption. As a close-to-home, less expensive, and less complicated choice for entertainment, our parks have historically performed well throughout various cycles, as families always find a way to make time for fun.

We believe those same staycation attributes are even more relevant today, and combined with an outstanding 2025 capital program, position us well as we head into the peak summer season. Now, turning to the company's balance sheet for a moment. We ended the quarter with ample liquidity, including $62 million of cash on hand and $179 million of available capacity under our revolving credit facility. Of the company's $5.3 billion of gross debt at the end of the first quarter, which included $626 million in borrowings on our revolving credit facility, approximately 70% is fixed through long-term notes. Outside of $200 million in senior notes that mature in July of this year, we have no significant maturities before 2027. We are monitoring the credit markets and evaluating options to address our July notes, including the possibility of using rejected balance sheet liquidity to fund payoff.

Regarding our CapEx programs, during the first quarter, we spent $140 million on capital expenditures, which is consistent with our previously disclosed expectation to spend $475-$500 million for the full year in 2025. As we have previously said, our plan is to invest a similar amount in 2026. Beyond our CapEx plans, we are in a strong position to use excess free cash flow to pay down debt as quickly and efficiently as possible. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Richard.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Thanks, Brian. As we look towards the rest of the year, I'd like to take a few minutes to expand on our strategic roadmap and how we're positioning Six Flags to deliver sustainable growth in 2025 and beyond. First and foremost, as I mentioned earlier, we've made significant progress on our merger integration and synergy realization plans. From a systems perspective, our IT integration is on track. Guest data across all parks will be migrated to our in-house ticketing platform by year-end, providing a seamless experience for all park pass holders and enabling a more unified approach to pricing, promotion, and CRM. Integration of the full technology stack remains a multi-year initiative, although we're pleased with the groundwork that has already been laid to advance that effort. Our ongoing portfolio optimization efforts are another key to our strategy to strengthen the business and realize the full potential of the merger.

I'm pleased to say that these efforts are well underway, as evidenced by the recent announcement of our plans to close our Maryland parks after the 2025 season. The decision to sunset Six Flags America and Hurricane Harbor at the end of this season was a difficult but necessary one, a decision that aligns with our broader priorities to simplify our operations, reduce portfolio risk, and focus resources on high-margin, high-growth parks. Proceeds from the divestiture of non-core assets such as this will support debt reduction, and the transactions are expected to be cash flow accretive, reduce our leverage ratio, and modestly improve EBITDA margins. It's premature to provide a specific timetable for the sale process, but it's reasonable to say it could take 12-18 months or more to complete.

Along with other asset sale efforts, including excess land adjacent to King's Dominion near Richmond, Virginia, we will work diligently with our real estate advisors to execute these transactions as efficiently as possible while maximizing value. As it relates to future divestiture of assets, we do not have any plans to close any additional parks at this time. We will continue to evaluate all options and consider other potential transactions to enhance shareholder value. In the meantime, we are excited at the prospect of operating all 42 of our parks for the 2025 season. We have also made great progress building out our capital plans for the next few years, with our capital strategy remaining disciplined and tightly aligned with our growth priorities. As Brian mentioned earlier, we still expect to invest approximately $1 billion on capital projects for the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

Should macroeconomic conditions meaningfully change, we will have several levers at our disposal to reduce our use of cash. Most meaningfully is our ability to quickly adjust the scope of our CapEx program. Approximately 30% of our annual CapEx budget is allocated to infrastructure projects that are more discretionary, have shorter lead times, and can often be delayed until later periods. Along with our ability to adjust our operating cost structure up and down to match demand levels, this affords us the flexibility to rationalize our use of cash should market conditions change materially from planned. We will continue to be disciplined and nimble in deploying capital.

Despite broader concerns around the economy, we remain focused on executing our strategic roadmap, driving top-line growth, capturing synergies, and resetting our cost structure, optimizing our portfolio of assets, and improving capital efficiency, which positions Six Flags well to deliver quality earnings growth, substantial free cash flow growth, and enhanced value for our shareholders. We are excited to share more details of our long-term strategy at our upcoming investor day, where we will outline our growth objectives through 2028, the pathway to a 40% margin, and a clear line of sight for unlocking more shareholder value. In closing, I want to thank our associates for their commitment to delivering an exceptional guest experience. To the investment community, we appreciate your continued support and confidence and look forward to keeping you updated on our progress as we pursue our long-range targets. Abby, that concludes our opening remarks.

Please open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one a second time. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. To be able to take as many questions as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. You may rejoin the queue if you have additional questions. Again, it is star one if you would like to join the queue. Our first question comes from the line of James Hardiman with Citigroup.

Your line is open.

Sean Wagner (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, this is Sean Wagner on for James Hardiman. I believe the 36 additional operating days works out to about 2% growth in operating days in the second quarter. How do you expect attendance and sales growth in that quarter to compare to that number?

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

I'll let Sean—that's Richard. I'll let Brian take the number aspect of it. What I will say, I'll reiterate what we said in our guidance. We, from the beginning, have believed that second and third quarters are where the opportunity were as we look at the combined park portfolio. So all of our emphasis is we believe those are higher margin days. We believe those are going to be highly accretive, and we see really strong demand heading into those second quarter and third quarter days. Brian?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah, Sean, we don't have specific quarterly guidance. I'm going to couch my comments carefully here. As Richard mentioned, the focus coming into 2025 was about optimizing the operating calendar and taking out lower value days in the first and fourth quarter, or maybe characterize it slightly different and say days that have a lower ceiling and maybe a lower floor at the same time because of the variability of weather. Adding back days in the second and third quarter will be higher value days that we believe not only represent the ability for higher margin days but also higher attendance days.

Sean Wagner (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. I guess, is there any quantification you can give us on the Easter and/or Boysenberry Festival shifts? Now that Easter is behind us and most of the Boysenberry Festival has occurred, do you expect to make all of that up into the queue, or did poor weather kind of hold any of that back?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Certainly, weather has been, as we noted, a factor in April. We said weather and led by the Midwest. It was not exclusive to the Midwest, but the Midwest was the most impacted. We lost, as we noted on the call in our prepared remarks, about 175,000 visits over that last half of—or the second—or the last two weeks, I am sorry, of April. Boysenberry is still ongoing. The event is not over. It runs through May, in the middle of May, at Knott's. Boysen will have sort of lapped by the time we get to the end of the second quarter. We do believe, as we were just talking about, the opportunities to add those days in May and June are going to be greater or have greater upside than what was potentially lost in April because of the weather. Now, May and June could also face weather issues.

That's the uncertainty of an outdoor entertainment business. We are excited about the potential that May and June represent with those incremental operating days.

Sean Wagner (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Just to clarify, is there any quantification you can give us on, I guess, the attendance impact that the Easter or the Boysenberry Festival shifts had?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Boysen would have been the most pronounced. Boysenberry—now again, the event's not over, so I do not want to give an uninformed number on Boysen. I think we will be in a better position to tell you exactly what shifted after the Boysenberry event has fully wrapped.

Sean Wagner (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski with Stifel. Your line is open.

Steve Wieczynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah, hey, guys. Good morning.

Good morning, Steve.

How are you guys? I hope you guys are doing well. Brian, just want to clarify something. I think you mentioned, I'm pretty sure you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you're expecting the first quarter attendance to represent, I think you said, about 5.5% for the full year and then first quarter revenues to be about 6% for the full year. That's different than what I think was in your release. I think your release says it should be about 7% for both. I assume that's more historical versus anything else. Just want to clarify that I heard you right there because I think there's a lot of folks and investors out there that are kind of a little bit panicked about what was in the release.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah, Steve. The 7% would be more of a historical or what we would normally expect coming into a year, given some of the headwinds around timing of operating calendars and other factors. The pace that we're on right now, you heard correctly. On attendance, we're currently tracking where first quarter would represent 5.5% of full-year attendance based on our outlook over the balance of the year and revenues closer to 6%, which is inside of what would be a normal course or a historical pacing for the first quarter. I think the key thing to take away is that the first quarter is not a material quarter by any stretch. It's a very important quarter from a setting up the stage for getting the parks ready to open.

In terms of the trend lines, as we said, it's somewhat of an inconsequential or not indicative quarter when it comes to what full-year potential looks like.

Steve Wieczynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Gotcha. Thanks for that, Brian. Then second question, probably for you, Richard, but want to ask about the decision to close the Six Flags park in Maryland. Look, I guess the thesis is essentially shut the park down, that land there—I mean, I'm from Maryland—that land has to be worth a decent amount of money, and then you'll be able to keep the majority of those folks. Essentially, it's your King's Dominion park, which is relatively close in the grand scheme of things. I guess the question is, as we kind of look across your portfolio, I know you said you're not actively looking to shut other assets down, but to me, it would seem like there are other opportunities to do the same type of thing across the portfolio.

While you're maybe not shopping something today, is that the right way to think about it?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

I think, Steve, let me answer it this way, Steve. I think it's a good question. As I think about that particular land parcel and we think back to the transaction that we did at Legacy Cedar back in 2022 with the land underneath our Santa Clara Park, there are times where you have unique opportunities, and this truly is unique. Put the land in Maryland underneath our DC Park and the land at Richmond underneath the excess land at Richmond, both have huge potential to generate values that far in excess of what we think we can produce in terms of results going forward. When we look at the ability to redeploy capital, we try to be good stewards of the capital that's invested in this company. I think we've got an obligation to spot these types of opportunities and act quickly on them.

We're going to move as quickly as possible while maximizing value, as I said in my prepared remarks. We do have now parks all across North America, so there's lots of opportunities for people to buy tickets to our parks in every region, including the DC area, the Baltimore area, and down through Raleigh and Richmond as well. When we think about the rest of the portfolio, we'll continue to evaluate where there are other opportunities. We do not see as much an opportunity on the underlying land at this point under the rest of the portfolio, but there may be an opportunity, as we said, to maximize values and think about some of our smaller locations.

Steve Wieczynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Gotcha. Thanks for that, guys. Really appreciate it.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Thanks, Steve.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Arpimé Kocharian with UBS. Your line is open.

Arpimé Kocharian (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you so much for taking my question. Brian, Richard, I am currently hearing on the Easter shift and events kind of moving out of Q1 into Q2. April is tracking a bit softer than what would have been implied by that Easter shift. I understand you talked about weather impact. My question is, what gives you confidence to keep the guidance here? It sounded like you have not really seen much impact from the weakening consumer in your business. Is there anything else you are watching closely? The key question is, what are those early signs that you are seeing that give you the confidence to keep the guidance unchanged here? I have a quick follow-up.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Thank you. Let me jump in here and say that we do remain confident in our ability to hit our full-year numbers. What we watch are both long-lead indicators, and we've talked at length today about season pass sales, but also what we're seeing as we look at the information that comes available as we open up parks, how they're performing. We opened up Cedar Point last Saturday, and in 47 degrees Fahrenheit and a driving rain that was almost sideways, we had almost 18,000 people in the park because they were there to ride the reopened Top Thrill two, and they were there to experience the be-on-air on opening day at Cedar Point, which is a long-held tradition. That type of demand, when we see that and a level of demand in less-than-ideal weather, gives us real confidence that we look at things.

I know when we also watch, and I know there's a lot of concern about the health of the consumer. When we look at how our consumers perform, and let me give you a little backdrop of one thing that we watched. When we look specifically at the e-commerce channel and what we sell through our e-commerce channel on a year-to-date basis since January 1, we're up 1% in unit volume, and we're up mid-single digits on price if you average out everything that we sell through that channel. We continue to see a willingness of the consumer to recognize value and dip into it. Lastly, the other thing that I'm really excited about, we've talked at length about our approach to food and beverage and the ability to generate more transactions, grow revenues within our food and beverage segment.

We've renovated 11 restaurants across the portfolio, converting them into what we call our cruiser model. It's a model that improves service capacity, allows us to increase menu variety, and the ability to drive a higher check average through staffing plus. The results have been outstanding and encouraging. Per capita spending is up year over year at all 11 locations. The average transaction value across the 11 locations is up almost 10%. Five of the locations have increased transaction accounts by more than 50%, and four of them have doubled the transactions. It is not just pricing. It is also the ability to get people to buy up the menu because we have higher quality items that they'll choose, but it is also the ability to drive that revenue in a very efficient way.

When we look at it, that's part of the formula here where we're going to continue to drive that in-park spending. That combined with our approach to cost management, and I'll reinforce that what Brian and I both said in our prepared remarks, we anticipate that operating costs and expenses will be down 3% or more in this calendar year. Yes, tough first quarter, not indicative of full-year performance, but the ability to drive top-line revenue growth, really be cost-efficient and take cost out of the system, which is one of the rationales behind the deal, the ability to continue to optimize portfolio. All those things give us confidence that we can achieve the 2025 operating plan, but also more importantly, set up a really successful 2026 and beyond.

We'll have a call for everybody on that topic when we get together for our investor day on May 20th.

Arpimé Kocharian (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Looking forward to that, and thank you. That's super helpful. Just a quick follow-up, Richard, if I may. In terms of your asset sales, is it possible at all to put in perspective kind of what your expectations are in terms of proceeds for the combined land sale and the Maryland sale? I guess I'm trying to understand what's the extent of the leveraging we could expect from those. To the extent you can answer, understanding there could be some sensitivity around how much you can say. I appreciate anything I could get.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Yeah. I'll let Brian weigh in as well, but we'll have a lot more to say in terms of our leveraging target and how we see both the proceeds from this and any other potential action between now and 2028. We'll have more to say on that on May 20th. We're looking to unlock significant proceeds, particularly from the land sales, and then we'll reapproach anything else that has to be something that would generate significant impact. It's really about also reducing the complexity of our business model and making sure that the capital we're putting back in the business goes towards those high-potential, high-revenue growth opportunity sites. Brian?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah, Arpimé, we're not going to put a specific price on those two locations, but if you were to go out and look at a range of market price per acre, you can see a gross proceeds number that could easily get north of a couple hundred million dollars.

Arpimé Kocharian (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Yeh with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Thomas Yeh (Analyst)

Thanks so much. I wanted to ask about progress on unifying your season pass selling strategy. I think you've been implementing a more consistent pricing on the legacy Six Flags footprint than was historically used. Any more color you can provide on how you've seen behavior shift on the Six Flags side, maybe both in terms of the blended pricing to date and the pace of adoption you expect and how much you think that contributed to the gains that you saw in the last four or five-week period?

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Thomas, good morning. It's Richard. What we saw over the last four or five-week period indeed was indicative of where we think we could go. We strongly believe in a consistent approach to the market so that the market understands they can make their own decisions on value that we provide and see that the value gets greater. We think there's a tremendous opportunity in June and July given the membership aspect of the Six Flags program, and we've got that sort of the installment at some of the pieces. We really do need to get back to what I laid out in my prepared remarks, which is getting everybody on the same ticketing system. We harmonized the programs at a high level.

We did not want to give up on this season, and we rolled out the all-park passport, which lets you visit any of our parks in the portfolio. A lot more work to do, but it's really going to be a lot easier, and we're going to be a lot more efficient and effective when everybody's on the same ticketing system, when all the data's fed into our data warehouse, and the CRM folks that are on our team can go in and mine the value out of our guests and the relationship we have with them and focus on driving more visits and getting more out of every visit from those season pass holders. Brian, anything you want to add? Yeah.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

I would just say, Thomas, we knew coming into 2025, given all the efforts that Richard just talked about in terms of ticket harmonization, but also program harmonization, that it was going to be a little bit bumpy as we reset the season pass and membership programs on both sides of the portfolio. A little bit later start to the year with a later Easter and maybe deferring some of the opening days a little bit deeper into the season would put us a little bit timing-wise behind where we were last year, but very encouraged by the sales trends up mid-single digits in terms of unit sales over the last five weeks of April. I think it's also important to note that there's multiple bites at this apple, right?

It's not just the sale of 2025 passes, which May and June, as Richard noted, very meaningful part of the full sale cycle. Before we know it, we'll be quickly into late summer and selling 2026 passes, and we feel we'll be in a much better place in terms of the consumer's understanding of what the program looks like. We'll be deeper into that exercise of harmonizing the ticketing platform. We're focused right now. The teams are highly focused on the May-June window, but there's a lot of prep work going on with plans for the 2026 launch later this summer. There are multiple opportunities to really drive the season pass program in the right direction.

Thomas Yeh (Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful. Maybe just a quick follow-up going off of these initial questions on the full-year attendance implied guidance. I think 5.5% for Q1 puts you at around a 2% growth rate for the year. This might be using too much precision on a small number at this point, but do you anticipate there's room for attendance to still grow above historical trends, which I think is what you guided to last quarter, or did the slightly lower than expected Q1 in April take you down a little bit on that? Thanks so much.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah. Go ahead, Brian.

Go ahead, Richard. Yeah. I was just going to say I think you hit it on the head, Thomas, right? There's a degree of precision that depending on whether you use 5.5% or you use 5.7% or 5.3%, you can skew things dramatically. We said that it's tracking right now where first quarter would represent closer to approximately 5.5%. Is there upside to that absolute math? Certainly. We think there's a lot of opportunity in June, as evidenced by the expanded operating calendar. We think there's great opportunity in July given the weather comps that we have from last year. I think depending on how those things play out over the balance of the year and what you put into your model, you can get to a number that's above the 2% for the full year.

Thomas Yeh (Analyst)

Thank you.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Thanks, Thomas.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Ben Chaiken with Mizuho. Your line is open.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Hey. Good afternoon. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess first on cost, I feel like there's a pretty significant update that we kind of just glossed over. You're saying 3% or more lower on cost. I just maybe have a couple of clarifications here. Number one, is that all—do you define that as all cash costs or just the delta between revenue dividend? Point number two is the down 3% plus, is that an actual kind of number that we should expect in the P&L, or do we then need to gross that up for inflation? So meaning our reported cost is going to be down 3% plus or up when you take into consideration. And then point number three, what changed versus your previous goal, which I think was $70 million in the year, which I don't think would have gotten you to down 3% plus?

And then a few follow-ups. Thanks.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Ben, let me jump in here first. Yes. What we're saying is when I say down 3% operating cost and expenses, I would exclude cost of goods sold. That's a separate calculation, separate look at things. This is operating expenses and SG&A combined. We'll be down 3% per our forecast. We did say that we hit our 120. We hit $50 million of cost synergy savings last year, and this year we'll hit all 70. That's how we complete the 120. We're comfortable. We've got the decisions in place. We're executing on the reorg. We understand the need to actually expand margins as one of the reasons we did this deal. That's tapping the potential of the merger.

As we look forward, we're continuing to hunt for a little bit more, but I'll also emphasize the $60 million I referenced in my remarks sits on top of that $120 million, and that's both the impact in 2026 of decisions we're making this year, but also other things that we can't get to until we harmonize the tech stack. We're plotting out the integration and mining the fruits of the integration over the next 12-24 months. Please, we got to 50% more than the cost synergies and savings we originally promised, and we continue to look to be as efficient as possible.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Richard, maybe just a follow-up there for a second in case I missed it. I totally hear you on the cost ex-cogs, but is that a net of inflation number, or then will we have layer-in inflation on top of that? I'm just trying to, from a modeling perspective, think about where expectations should be.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah, Ben, it's Brian. That number is all in, inflation inclusive. The only thing I would call out, and I think you alluded to this in how you asked the question, that would be excluding any integration or other adjusted EBITDA add-backs like severance. As we go through this reorg effort, there'll be a chunk of severance over the second half of the year related to that. Really looking at your sort of recurring normal course, operating costs and expenses inclusive of SG&A in that target.

Ben Chaiken (Analyst)

Understood. What are these $60 million? I totally appreciate the incremental $60 million that are coming out in 2026, which is, I think, a new data point. Can we maybe dive in about what encompasses those $60 million? Is that also a net of inflation number as well?

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

We'll have more to say in a couple of weeks as we look at the profile of our 2028 target. I would say, as I said, some of it is the residual impact, the remaining impact of decisions we're making in real time as we go through reorganizing our company. Some are things that we can't get to until next year. We're still building out the operating plan, but we think that that level of savings takes a big chunk out of the inflation impact in next year. Brian?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah. I would say right now that target, Ben, may be slightly different. That's a gross synergy or cost savings target for 2026. We'll be doing a lot more work as we get into later in here into 2025 and building out the 2026 plan where inflation and some of those other things that may offset.

That's our gross incremental synergy piece that sits above and beyond the original 120 that we had announced with the merger.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Got it. And then just to lob in a very quick third one. In an ideal world regarding the land sales in Maryland, would you get certain entitlements on that land in Maryland prior to selling, for example, data in order to maximize value? Are you trying to do that currently? It may be a better way of asking it.

We're working closely with the jurisdictions in Richmond and also in DC to make sure that the process yields a benefit for the company, but certainly a benefit for the community. Entitlements are always part of that process. We have found both jurisdictions extremely engaged and looking to help in the process. I think those conversations would be productive. There's always a tug of war. There's always some tension in the timeline between getting entitlements and what ultimately the property becomes when you redevelop a property and the proceeds you get. We'll look for the intersection that maximizes value, but that also delivers it in an efficient timeframe and very.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Voss with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Great. Thanks. Richard, maybe in light of the near-term economic uncertainty that you cited, how are you thinking about balancing price versus volume near-term? At Six Flags, on the recapture opportunity from attendance, just how best to think about the annual cadence of attendance recapture if we think about maybe the linearity of recapturing the lost attendance relative to investments or initiatives that you have in place multi-year?

Matt, I would say as we think about the opportunity to drive market penetration, we think it's one of the key reasons, key opportunities that the combined company has and new Six Flags has. As we think about that, I think there are under-penetrated markets across the portfolio that reside from either side of the companies that came from either side of the legacy companies. What we have seen in the past is you get good traction in year one, you get more traction in year two, and there's a build. We are going to talk about what we see over the next few years beyond 2025 and early 2026 as we get to May 20. I do not want to foreshadow those comments too much because we have a robust presentation for everybody, and we are excited to go through it.

As we think about the opportunity, it's considerable. You've heard us say that in the under-penetrated parks, if we get those under-penetrated parks up to what we would say are the guide rail levels, there's $10 million in the near term. There's significantly more than that in the longer term. As we think about 2028, there's a look at how we drive demand with our capital plans, which are coming together nicely. I'm really excited about the reactions we've seen in all of the parks that have opened, and we've seen some tremendous reaction to the coasters that we're opening and that we're about to open. I think there is a real affinity in each of the markets, and there are core customers that really want to come back year after year.

Our job is to execute really well, provide a great guest experience, and get them to come back year after year. Brian, anything you want to add?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

I'd just say, Matt, at a high level, the 2025 business plan is certainly built and focused around driving demand, as Richard said, tapping into the opportunities that are in front of us. At the same time, we remain confident in our ability to improve guest spending. That opportunity will increase as we get deeper into the season, as you referenced sort of the cadence of attendance. You have heard us talk about keeping our parks comfortably crowded. It is important as that extends length of stay, which increases spending on things like food and beverage and drives more demand for premium experience. While not meaning maybe not material increases in the first quarter and in April, seeing per capita continuing to trend in the right direction is extremely encouraging, particularly as we think about some of the initiatives that we have in place.

Richard hit on it a little bit earlier in answering one of the questions about some of the early momentum we're seeing in a channel like food and beverage with the initiatives of renovating and adding food locations. I think it's a combination of both volume and per capita, and pricing will follow, right? We'll continue to use dynamic pricing and BI tools that we've always used. One thing that we should note is we're putting a floor on pricing. While dynamic pricing cuts both ways, we're not looking to—we've said this before and we'll continue to say—we're not discounters. We're looking to maintain pricing discipline.

That's a little bit educated by our past experience that shows even in challenging economic times, demand becomes highly inelastic, meaning that there's no amount of discounting to preserve or preserve attendance or drive the consumer to behave any differently than they're going to. So we'll lean into pricing more than we'll take pricing down.

Matthew Voss (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. And then maybe just to follow up, Brian, on the cost side, could you just walk through the puts and takes to consider as it relates to maybe this year's reset of the base relative to the underlying operating cost growth to consider as we think about relative to the low to mid-single-digit growth historically?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah. So I mean, I think coming into this year, as Richard said in previous remarks, it's a continuation of the effort that began last year after the merger closed, challenging for us to make significant changes in the middle of the season. There was a lot of planning and a lot of work that was going on at that point in time, but we had to wait on a lot of those changes until after the season wrapped, which for some of our parks was early November. In other parks, it was not until early January. The exercise to reset the cost base is across the board. It involves, as we have said, a review and a reset of the org structure.

It involves leaning in on other non-headcount-related cost savings, whether that be the harmonization of our IT stack or driving better terms with our vendor partners and suppliers. It is across the spectrum, quite frankly. Matt, I would say early on, it skews a little bit more heavily. The opportunity skews a little bit more heavily on the headcount side of things and then starts to pivot a little bit more towards the non-headcount. As Richard said, there are some things that are contractually tied up for a little longer than you would like, and you get to them maybe later in 2025, or they are part of the 2026 algorithm for cost savings. In terms of the headwinds, there is always inflation, and we are dealing with that. As we noted to Ben's question, we have accounted for that in our target of 3% or more cost reduction.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Really, Matt, let me jump in here. We said that this would be the great reset when we put these companies together, and 2025 proved to be that. When we talk about rearchitecting our business, it's not just rearchitecting the org structure. We've gone in and applied a lot of science, benchmarking different sites against each other. We've gone in and taken the time to redo our decision-making processes. This was a holistic look at our organization, not just the structure, but how we make decisions. I'm really pleased that where we're coming out and how we've clarified within the organization and will clarify how we be as effective as possible while being as efficient as possible. We're really driving this business through the use of KPIs and embedding the data and analytics around those KPIs in all the decisions we're making.

Matthew Voss (Equity Research Analyst)

Great, Colin. Thanks a lot.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Thanks, Ben.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Swartz with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Michael Swartz (Stock Analyst)

Hey, guys. Good morning. Maybe just with all the macro and consumer uncertainty out there, maybe if we just take a step back and go back to prior periods of consumer weakness, where do we typically start to see some of the cracks in the foundation as it pertains to your business?

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Good question, Mike. Good morning, it's Richard. When I think back to 2008, 2009, we saw it going into 2008, 2009, season pass sales were significantly lower. We saw group bookings not just eroding, but we actually had groups calling us up and canceling. And when we looked at our resort bookings, they dropped off considerably heading into the season. We're not seeing any of that. As I said, let's work backwards here. We've seen a 10% increase in opening weekends of Cedar Point and bookings for that weekend. So people are booking later, but they're booking. We've seen an increase in our small group booking channel, which is our groups that are 15-100. That's showing strength. Youth and student groups are showing a lot of strength. So we're not seeing it there.

We are seeing companies being cautious, but we're also seeing companies saying, "I may not book my spring outing. What do you got available in the fall?" They are looking a little bit longer. With season pass north of 50%, 55%-60% of our attendance, we really watch that channel most closely. What we saw—and I'll go back to what I said about our e-commerce channel—just looking at everything we sell in our e-commerce, volume up 1%, pricing up mid-single digits, it means that we do not see the erosion of the consumer that maybe some other businesses are seeing. That is not to say that it is not there in other sectors, but our consumers and our markets are reacting the way we would expect them to as we head into late spring.

Michael Swartz (Stock Analyst)

Okay. Great. That's super helpful. Maybe one off question on the first quarter. I know there's a lot of noise in the quarter given the timing of Easter and some of the calendar shifts. When I look at the legacy Six Flags business, it looks like the rate of EBITDA decline was nearly triple what it was last year. Maybe just help us unpack why that was.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah, Mike. I think as you look at the two sides of the portfolio, we certainly, with the Six side of our portfolio, the Six Flags parks, more of those opening up earlier. We invested, and it's a big chunk of the timing difference I mentioned on the cost side. I'd say more of it is happening from the cost side as we brought forward a lot of off-season, whether you want to call it maintenance or pre-opening costs. We brought a lot of those from a timing perspective earlier in the year here in 2025. That is a bigger part of the equation on our Six Flags side of the portfolio.

On the Cedar side, a little bit more of the headwind is related to the shift to Knott's Berry Farm, but that's really the only park that we have on that side of the portfolio that has any significant or meaningful first quarter operations. On the Six side, we did see a little bit of headwind on some of the calendar issues, but not as demonstrative as maybe what we saw with Knott's Berry Farm's Boysenberry Festival.

Michael Swartz (Stock Analyst)

Okay. Super helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Ian Zaffino (Managing Director)

Hi, Craig. Thank you very much. I know that you talked about F&B, and you seem to be leaning very much into it, and it seems to be going well. Have you seen any type of shift on the F&B side? Are people still—is the uptake on more discretionary F&B, if you call it that, maybe like alcohol or something along those lines? Is there any type of softness or anything along those lines there? Is it pretty much as robust there as it is kind of in the other F&B offerings? Thanks.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Yeah, Ian, it's Richard. You broke up a little bit. I think you asked about the various pieces of F&B. I would say we've seen strength in our meal category. We've seen real strength in beverages. We've still seen great strength in adult beverages. It really has been across the board. Weekend by weekend, I would tell you that if it's a rainy weekend, you don't get as much snack selling. Snacks go down a little because length of stay is probably not the same. We've seen on normal same-day weather to same-day weather, sunny weather, strength across all the things that we track. I mentioned the 11 locations that we've already opened. We still got a couple more we're going to open in May.

I will tell you here at our local Charlotte park, we're putting in an adult swim-up beverage bar that everybody has been asking me about. We see the desire of our consumers to really come and enjoy the food and beverage segment. It really seems to resonate as a guest satisfier. We like it as a revenue growth potential, but it also is something people talk about, and one of the reasons they keep coming back.

Ian Zaffino (Managing Director)

Okay. Thanks. Maybe to broaden the question, just geographically, can you maybe tell us how businesses kind of geographically—some of the competitors have commented on West Coast softness—have you seen any of that at all, or is it pretty much broad-based just geographically stable? Thanks.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

I would say Brian can weigh in here, but I would say what we've seen, and Brian referenced it, is because we had a couple of inclement weather weekends, rainy weekends, Midwest and East Coast, that sort of colored it. No, when we've had good weather, we've seen what we would expect to see throughout all the regions. Again, it's a limited sample size at this point. We're only 15% of our operating days in. It's a little hard to get a read on the whole portfolio when the whole portfolio is not up and operating. That'll be in early June when everybody's seven days a week. That's when we'll have a real meaningful look at the different regions. I will say historically, what we've seen, the Midwest has been rock solid the last four years. That's continued to perform really well.

The coast has a little more impact from weather, particularly the East Coast. What we like about, and we'll talk about on May 20th, the geographic diversity means we don't have more than 30% of our attendance or revenues in any particular region. That well-diversified model was one of the keys to doing the merger and why we feel really good about that diversification. Although it does take an adjustment for Brian and I. Anytime you look at the weather map, we've got parks everywhere. If there's weather anywhere, it's going to be near us.

Ian Zaffino (Managing Director)

All right. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

We appreciate your patience. We have five questions left in queue, and we would like to take them all. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Chris Woronka (Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for working overtime on the call here. I was hoping they'd talk a little bit about guest mix at Six Flags. I know you guys—you did the chaperone policy when you closed the deal last summer. I know there was a little bit of near-term disruption with that. Looking forward, and I understand your commentary about pricing on Six Flags' legacy passes maybe being flat, do you think you can get to where you want on mix this year, or is that more of a multi-year project?

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

As I think about the guest mix, one of the things I'll go back to is how we think about capital. We've always said, and we'll reiterate as we talk about this business, we think there's a rotation in any market of thrill rides, family product, and water product. You see that in our mix this year. We've got water park renovations and expansions at LA and Dallas. You see coasters in several parks. You see here at Charlotte and a couple other markets, family product going in. I think what we've seen, Chris, is the broad profile of what we would expect to see as we broaden our mix. The markets are reacting. Chaperone policy has been helpful in the key markets across all of our company, and we use that extensively.

I do think when you offer things that appeal to different segments, you'll start to broaden your base over time.

Chris Woronka (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Thanks, Richard. Quick follow-up just related to also kind of a CapEx question, which is I know you said about 30% of your CapEx might be infrastructure. I do not think that relates to any of the maintenance stuff you were working on at Six Flags with respect to lighting and, yeah, the little things that had kind of gone undone over the years. Are you satisfied that as you head into peak season at the legacy Six Flags parks that you have got all the little things that need to be fixed, or are they kind of in place by now?

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Yeah. I'll let Brian weigh in. We continue to look at things that we can do to improve the guest experience. We prioritize those things that I think the guests give us much value at. Listen, as a guy who ran a park, I will tell you I walked the site that I was responsible for the first year, and 10 years later, I still hadn't gotten everything. The list is always long. We see things that sometimes our customers do not, but they're important to us. We are going to continue to make improvements year by year and make sure that we're giving priority to those things the guests value most, which is why we're so focused on food and beverage because we get a lot of credit for that. It's high perceived value, and it really drives our demand.

Chris Woronka (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Hey, thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Lizzie Dove with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Lizzie Dove (Stock Analyst)

Hi there. Thanks for taking the question. I know there's a lot of moving pieces, but just to kind of round everything out with the kind of calendar shifts you mentioned in Q2 and 3Q and kind of timing of cost shifting and attendance shifting, any help in how to think about the kind of cadence of EBITDA for the year? I think the midpoint would imply the next three quarters grow around, call it 15%, but I'm curious if that's more weighted second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter based on just some of the operating calendar shifts that you mentioned.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah, Lizzie, it's Brian. I mean, as we said, the biggest opportunity and the focus coming into this year was second and third quarters. I think third quarter is pretty obvious to everyone as it's the lion's share of the operating calendar. Second quarter represents some great opportunity, particularly May and June, given the expanded number of days in those months. As we said on the call, those two quarters together have the potential to be 95% or more of full-year EBITDA. Again, a lot of the timing is often influenced by macro factors like weather. We've always been very confident that when weather can be a little choppy early in the year, you still have plenty of runway to make it up. It gets difficult to be precise in an imprecise world like that.

I think the second and third quarters do provide the opportunity to.

Lizzie Dove (Stock Analyst)

Parks where you see the opportunity for attendance growth at the greatest. I'm curious, which are those parks where you see the biggest opportunity or kind of turnaround story or uplift story from here that you would consider to be, call it, your most core parks?

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah. As Richard mentioned, there's a number of parks in the portfolio that, from a penetration rate, sit lower than some of the better-performing parks. We will focus on those. I think it's also important to call out that the planned operating calendar changes, the additions we're making, those are always—there's always a little bit of degree of variability to that, meaning that when weather's a little unfavorable, we're going to manage that day maybe out of the system from a cost management perspective. When we see strong demand, particularly—and this is more of a comment that you would see us make changes maybe late August and into the fall—when we see strong demand, we're not afraid to add days in and ride that demand. I think if you look at the operating calendar, you're going to see some very obvious things.

We're adding some days back in June at Six Flags Over Texas as an example. We think that that makes a lot of sense in that market. There are a number of other markets in the system that we see a lot of opportunity for. Carowinds is a fast-growing market. We're continuing to look to find ways to add days in the fall where we can tap into strong momentum.

Lizzie Dove (Stock Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Brent Montour with Barclays. Your line is open.

Thomas Yeh (Analyst)

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. Just on the pass sales, digging in a layer deeper, you gave the overall pass revenue pace. You gave the pricing between the two legacy systems. I was wondering if you could maybe talk about it on a volume or a unit basis, just sort of when we think about the different pricing, and I understand there's different strategies, but just to give us a sense on sort of momentum on the different programs.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Yeah. I think in terms of—maybe I'll try and answer it this way. In terms of the outlook, we're trying to drive higher volumes on both sides of the combined portfolio. Consistent with the attendance trends coming into this year where on our legacy Cedar side of the portfolio, attendance was back to near pre-pandemic levels. The season pass base is somewhat reflective of that. On the Six side of our portfolio, attendance is still well off of pre-pandemic levels. And because season pass and membership is such a big part of our overall attendance, you can assume that the pass base is down as well to pre-pandemic levels. So the volume opportunity, much like for attendance, is higher at our Six parks. But we're not satisfied and going to settle for the volume numbers that we have on the Cedar side as well.

We're going to lean into both. If I was trying to separate between the two, I'd say the opportunity for volume is higher on the Six side right now than the Cedar side of the portfolio. The pricing, we can be a little bit more aggressive, as we noted in our prepared remarks, on the Cedar side because of that.

Brent Montour (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. Then just a bigger picture question on the full-year guidance, obviously reaffirming EBITDA. You called out macro in the release, and you've got some other moving pieces, right? Sounding a little bit better on OpEx. Obviously, 1Q was a bit tough versus planned. When I take a step back and think about all the comments you guys gave today about demand momentum and what you're seeing in terms of top-line KPIs, it doesn't seem like you're implying any change to your plan for top line for the year. Please let me know if I'm sort of walking myself off a cliff here.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

No, I would say, listen, we are encouraged by a number of things we've seen with the KPIs that we look at. We came in thinking that there was meaningful top-line growth to go get. We still believe that. We are chasing that hard. We are also trying to be as responsible as possible on the cost side and make sure that we, as we've talked at length on this call, get to the meaningful cost savings. That combination of driving the top line and meaningful cost reduction should drive a healthy increase in margin. I have commented throughout this call on various channels. We see things that are encouraging, but I'm looking forward to getting all 42 of our parks open so we can get a real read on where everything is.

Brent Montour (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, everyone.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our final question comes from the line of David Katz with Jefferies. Your line is open. David, I'm not sure if you are on mute.

David Katz (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Sorry about that. Thanks for taking my questions. I appreciate you staying on just a little bit longer. Just very quick details. Number one, there was some discussion about a couple of hundred million in deals. And I think what we heard is American Hurricane was $100 million-plus, but there is a couple of hundred. Could we just unpack that a little bit? What else is in that couple of hundred? Are you ready to talk about that at this point, or are we saving that for Ohio?

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

No, I'll let Brian clarify. The comments about the real estate value of the land in Richmond and the land in DC could be $200 million or more, I think, is what we said.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Correct. Yeah. We're not putting a price on anything separate at this point, David. We're still working through the process with our real estate advisors. I'm going to try, as Richard said, to maximize those values. We were just trying to put a neighborhood. If you look at market prices out there on a per-acre basis, you can get the math. It's north of $200,000 for those two combined locations that we've talked about to this point.

David Katz (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Just my second question is I hope you would just give us a little insight on the technology side of things. I know, Richard, you've talked about analytics being kind of a decision driver. How much of that is technology-driven, and what ending would you feel like you are at in terms of kind of pushing that part of the company going forward? I know that it was a legacy Six issue.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

I would say this. I think in terms of what we desire to have, I think we're in the middle innings of building a lot of that out. Dashboards are coming online virtually every week on different KPIs. We found a way to migrate data over so we can have the information we need, but we need to go back to the underlying tech stack and get everybody on the same system, whether that's the same POS system. We found ways, as you would expect us to, to get the data pulled out. A little more cumbersome, a little more clunky. I would say we know where we want to go. We're in the early innings of the tech stack integration, but we're making progress fast.

David Katz (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. We'll take it. Thanks very much, and appreciate being included.

Brian Witherow (CFO)

Thanks, David.

Operator (participant)

That will conclude our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Richard Zimmerman for closing remarks.

Richard Zimmerman (CEO)

Thanks for joining us on today's call. Brian, Michael, and I look forward to seeing many of you on Investor Day. We're excited to share our perspective on the growth potential of a larger and more formative Six Flags as well as our plan for monetizing the growth for the benefit of our shareholders and other constituents across North America and beyond. We will be sure to keep you updated on our progress along the way. Michael?

Michael Russell (Corporate Director of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Richard. Please feel free to contact our IR department at 419-627-2233. Our next earnings call will be in August after the release of our 2025 second quarter results. Abby, that concludes our call today. Thank you, everyone.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, again, this concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.