United Parks & Resorts - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 revenue declined 1.5% year over year to $490.2M; diluted EPS was $1.45 (down 0.7% YoY), and Adjusted EBITDA fell 5.4% to $206.3M; attendance increased 0.8% to ~6.234M as weather offset an Easter/Spring Break calendar benefit.
• Versus S&P Global consensus, PRKS posted a miss on revenue ($490.2M vs $497.1M est), a miss on Primary EPS (1.70 vs 1.80 est), and a miss on EBITDA (S&P EBITDA actual 183.8M vs 217.2M est). Values retrieved from S&P Global.
• Management cited “amongst the worst” Q2 weather, heavier promotions that pressured admissions per caps, and announced an accelerated cost-reduction program to cut up to $15M from H2 expenses; Board recommended a $500M share buyback (approved Sept 3) as a capital return catalyst.
• Orlando parks attendance rose despite Universal’s Epic Universe opening; early fall event ticketing (Howl O’ Scream) is ahead of prior year, Discovery Cove is on pace for a record attendance year—supporting expectations for stronger second-half results.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Attendance grew despite severe weather; Orlando parks (SeaWorld, Aquatica, Discovery Cove) attendance was up, and SeaWorld Orlando’s revenue was positive in Q2. “Attendance at our SeaWorld Orlando Park has been up... and we expect attendance for the remainder of the year... to be up as well.”
  • Early indicators for H2 strong: group bookings and Discovery Cove bookings up mid-to-high single digits; Howl O’ Scream presales ahead of last year; Discovery Cove on pace for a record year.
  • Cost actions and balance sheet: plan to cut up to $15M H2 expenses; net total leverage ~3.0x; ~$883M liquidity and ~$194M cash as of 6/30/25.

• What Went Wrong

  • Per caps declined: total revenue per cap down 2.2%; admissions per cap down 3.9% (pricing/mix); in-park per cap down 0.4% amid elevated promotions to counter weather.
  • Expense pressure: operating expenses rose 7.7% (including ~$9.6M non-cash self-insurance), SG&A up 1%; Adjusted EBITDA fell 5.4% YoY.
  • Deferred revenue decreased vs June 2024; pass base was down ~3% through July (improved thereafter), reflecting mix and promotional impacts.

Transcript

Speaker 2

Good morning and welcome to the United Parks & Resorts Inc. second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the STAR key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press STAR, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press STAR, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matthew Stroud of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the United Parks & Resorts Inc. second quarter earnings conference call. Today's call is being webcast and recorded. A press release was issued this morning and is available on our Investor Relations website at www.unitedparksinvestors.com.

Replay information from this call can be found in the press release and will be available on our website following the call. Joining me this morning are Marc Swanson, Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Mikolaichik, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. This morning, we will review our second quarter financial results, and then we will open the call for your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that our comments today will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those forward-looking statements, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

These risk factors may be updated from time to time and will be included in our filings with the SEC that are available on our website. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, on the call, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures and other financial metrics such as adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. More information regarding our forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure is included in our earnings release available on our website and can also be found in our filings with the SEC. Now, I would like to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Marc Swanson. Marc.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased to have grown attendance in the second quarter, despite experiencing among the worst weather we have ever experienced in the second quarter. Despite those headwinds, we saw an increase in international and group visitation compared to the prior year in the second quarter. Additionally, we saw an increase in attendance at all of our Orlando parks, including SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica Orlando, and Discovery Cove. Looking forward, we continue to be encouraged by the forward booking trends we are seeing in our group business and at our Discovery Cove property, both of which are up mid to high single digits for the remainder of the year. While it's early, the 2026 bookings are also showing very strong trends in both areas as well.

We are excited about the remaining lineup of events as we wrap up the summer, including Bands Brew & Barbecue at SeaWorld Orlando, Summer Spectacular at SeaWorld San Diego, Red, White, & Barbecue at SeaWorld San Antonio, and Beer Fest Brews & Barbecue at both Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and Busch Gardens Williamsburg over the next few weeks. Later in September, we'll start our popular Halloween events, which will run through October and be followed by our Christmas events in November and December. These special events continue to grow in popularity, and we expect this year's events to be among our biggest ever. Early forward booking ticket sales for our Hall of Scream events across our parks are running ahead of prior year. I want to thank all of our ambassadors for their hard work and dedicated efforts to make these things happen.

I'm also happy to announce that our board has approved a new $500 million share repurchase program subject to approval by a majority of the non-Hillpath stockholders. We intend to file preliminary proxy materials for a special meeting of stockholders within the coming days and expect to have the vote within the next 30 days. With our strong balance sheet and significant free cash flow generation, we are excited to be able to take advantage of what we believe to be a very attractive opportunity to invest in the shares of our own company via a share repurchase and return capital to our stockholders. The board and the company strongly believe our shares are materially undervalued.

As we have expressed in the past, we have significant confidence in our business, our prospects, and the value of our assets, and we believe any reasonable way you look at it, we feel we are materially undervalued and that there is meaningful upside opportunity in our current share price. Our balance sheet continues to be strong. Our June 30, 2025 net total leverage ratio is 3.0 times, and we had approximately $883 million of total available liquidity, including approximately $194 million of cash on the balance sheet. As a reminder, we generate a majority of our cash flow in our peak summer season, stretching over the second and third quarters. The strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to continue to invest in and grow our business and to opportunistically allocate capital with the goal to maximize long-term value for shareholders.

On cost, we are a little disappointed and probably could have and should have done a better job of proactively managing some of our park labor and operating expenses in the face of poor weather that impacted demand. We have tightened and improved our processes and added additional resources to help manage these areas better in the future. There are other areas of the P&L that we have opportunities to manage better also. In light of this, we are implementing an additional cost reduction plan that we expect will reduce up to $15 million of cost in the second half of the year. On Orlando, there has been considerable interest from you all on the opening of Universal’s new Epic Universe theme park this year in Orlando and the potential impact on demand at our SeaWorld Park in Orlando.

As we and some of our other competitors have consistently communicated, we welcome investment in the Orlando market, and we believe more high-quality investment is good for the overall market and good for our business. As you know, over the past 50 years since we arrived in Orlando, there has been significant investment in the market, which has driven more and more visitors and residents to this highly attractive market. Today, Orlando is the most visited city in America and amongst the top most visited cities in the world. We benefit substantially from the strategic position in this market. As you know, for competitive and other reasons, we do not normally share individual park performance information.

However, in the spirit of hopefully giving clarity and some conclusion to this open question, I will share with you all that, as expected, our attendance at our SeaWorld Orlando park has been up in attendance since Universal’s Epic Universe opened on May 22. It was up for the full second quarter, and it was up if you measured from the date Epic opened through the end of the second quarter. It continues to be up quarter to date in the third quarter through August 6 on a day-to-day basis, and we expect attendance for the remainder of the year at this park to be up as well. We hope this provides helpful context for you all. We have great respect for our competitors in Orlando.

We welcome increased investment from them, and we are very happy to be a major operator in this market, benefiting from its growth and vibrancy. We hope we really don't have to discuss this topic again, and we do not plan to make it a normal practice to discuss individual park performance information in the future. I'd also like to take a minute to highlight our early forward insights into 2026. As I mentioned earlier, our early group booking trends for 2026 are up, our early Discovery Cove property booking trends for 2026 are up, and our very early and recently launched at select parks 2026 pass sales are up. We have another exciting lineup of new rides, attractions, events, and activations we are planning for 2026, in addition to certain food and beverage, retail, and technology improvements, which we look forward to implementing.

We are in the midst of 2026 planning right now, and the team is working hard on putting a good plan in place for next year. Moving on to some of our strategic initiatives. On the sponsorship front, we have been actively working over the past several months on various sponsorship opportunities that leverage our valuable assets and customer database. As a reminder, we have over 21 million annual visitors across our park portfolio, and the average length of stay is over six hours. We have secured agreements with a number of partners across our parks and continue to work through a pipeline of other potential opportunities. We are projecting approximately up to mid-single-digit million dollars in sponsorship revenue for this year, with an annual outlook of approximately $20 million in the coming years.

On our international opportunities, we are in active discussions with multiple potential partners and expect to have two signed MOUs by the end of the year. More to share in the coming quarters. On the digital transformation front, we continue to make investments and build out our CRM capabilities and our mobile app. We continue to believe that CRM will play a role in our long-term growth strategy, providing deeper insights and more meaningful connections with our guests as we continue to scale. In regards to the mobile app, we continue to make progress on functionality, adoption, usage, and financial impact. The app is being used by an increasing number of guests in our parks to improve their impact performance. The app has now been downloaded more than 15.6 million times, up from 14.3 million at the end of Q1.

Total revenue generated on the app continues to grow, and we are now seeing an approximate 35% increase in average transaction value for food and beverage purchases made through the app compared to point-of-sale orders. We are excited about the potential of the app and its ability to improve the in-park guest experience, drive increases in revenue, and decreases in cost. On the hotel front, our work and discussions continue with various potential partners on a variety of structures. As we have discussed previously, we continue to be excited about opportunities to monetize a portion of our substantial and valuable unused land holdings and have hotels integrated into our properties. On real estate more generally, as we have discussed, we own over 2,000 acres of valuable real estate in desirable locations, including approximately 400 acres of undeveloped land adjacent to our parks, including significant developable land in Orlando.

We do not believe that the public markets have or are appropriately giving credit to these attractive and valuable 100% owned real estate assets. On IP partnerships, we continue our discussions with various partners to bring globally recognized IP to our parks via new rides, attractions, and/or other exciting activations. I'm excited about the significant investments we are making and the many initiatives we have underway across our business that we expect will improve guest experience, allow us to generate more revenue, and make us a more efficient and more profitable enterprise. We are building an even stronger and more resilient business that we are confident over time will deliver improved operational and financial results and meaningful increases in value for stakeholders. With that, Jim Mikolaichik will discuss our financial results in more detail. Jim?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Marc, and good morning, everyone. During the second quarter, we generated total revenue of $490.2 million, a decrease of $7.4 million or 1.5% when compared to the second quarter of 2024. The decrease in total revenue was primarily a result of decreases in admissions per capita and impact per capita spending, partially offset by an increase in attendance. Attendance for the second quarter of 2025 increased by approximately 48,000 guests or 0.8% when compared to the prior year quarter. The increase in attendance was primarily due to a favorable calendar shift, including the shift of Easter and spring break holidays from the first quarter to the second quarter, partially offset by the impact of significantly worse weather compared to the prior year quarter. In the second quarter of 2025, total revenue per capita decreased 2.2%, admission per capita decreased 3.9%, and impact per capita spending decreased 0.4%.

Admission per capita decreased primarily due to lower realized pricing on certain admission products when compared to the prior year quarter. Operating expenses increased $14.6 million or 7.7% when compared to the second quarter of 2024. The increase in operating expenses is primarily due to a $9.6 million increase in non-cash self-insurance adjustment compared to the second quarter of 2024. Selling, general, and administrative expenses increased $0.6 million or 1% compared to the second quarter of 2024. We reported net income of $80.1 million for the second quarter compared to net income of $91.1 million in the second quarter of 2024. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $206.3 million, a decrease of $11.9 million when compared to the second quarter of 2024. Looking at our results for the first half of 2025 compared to 2024, total revenue was $777.2 million, a decrease of $17.9 million or 2.2%.

Total attendance was 9.6 million guests, a decrease of 11,000 guests or 0.1%. Net income for the period was $64 million, a decrease of $15.9 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $273.7 million, a decrease of $23.6 million. Now turning to our balance sheet, our June 30, 2025 net total leverage ratio is three times, and we had approximately $883 million of total available liquidity, including approximately $194 million of cash on the balance sheet. This strong balance sheet gives us flexibility to continue to invest in and grow our business and to opportunistically allocate capital with the goal to maximize long-term value for shareholders. Our deferred revenue balance as of the end of June was $207.8 million. Deferred revenue decreased approximately $22.7 million when compared to June of 2024. Through July 2025, our pass base, including all pass products, was down approximately 3% compared to July 2024.

We have been pleased to see our pass base improve since the end of the second quarter, and we are also in the midst of launching our 2026 passes, which will include what we believe are our best-ever pass benefits programs. We are excited by our new 2026 pass program, and we expect the launch of the new passes will be well received by our guests to drive continued improvement and growth in our pass base as we progress through the second half of the year. Very early signs in a few of the parks where we have launched are positive. As a reminder, approximately 40% of our total annual attendance comes from our loyal and recurring pass base. Finally, as of June 30, 2025, we have invested $110.5 million in CapEx, of which approximately $98 million was on core CapEx and approximately $12.5 million on expansion or ROI projects.

For 2025, we expect to spend approximately $175 to $200 million on core CapEx and approximately $50 million of CapEx on growth and ROI projects. Before turning the call back over to Marc, I want to reiterate our comments on cost. We have been and continue to be focused on operational efficiencies and optimizing our expense structure to deliver results. While we have expense growth of 1.6% in the quarter and just 1.2% year to date, which was approximately in line with our discussions the last two quarters, we are not satisfied with our ability to dynamically manage our costs in the face of weather headwinds and related impact to demand that we experience. We should move more quickly and more proactively to manage our labor and operating expenses in reaction to lower demand over certain periods.

We have improved and will continue to improve our processes and organizational talent to ensure we are better going forward. Also, as Marc mentioned, we have implemented an incremental and accelerated cost reduction program that we expect will reduce second half expenses by up to $15 million. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Marc, who will share some final thoughts.

Speaker 0

Thanks, Jim. Before we open the call to your questions, I have some closing comments. In the second quarter of 2025, we came to the aid of 500 animals in need. Over our history, we have helped over 42,000 animals, including bottlenose dolphins, manatees, sea lions, seals, sea turtles, sharks, birds, and more. I'm really proud of the team's hard work and their continued dedication to these important rescue efforts. While we are just over seven months into 2025, we are excited about the remainder of the year with our current and upcoming events, including our summer festivals going on now and starting later our Halloween events, which will be followed by our Christmas events. I want to thank our ambassadors for their efforts during our busy summer season, as well as their ongoing preparation for our exciting fall and winter events.

We are confident in our ability to deliver operational and financial improvements that will result in meaningful increases in revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and total shareholder value. While headwinds impacted our performance in the first half of the year and took us off the pace we initially set, we are focused on and expect to deliver strong second half financial results. I'm excited about the opportunity set in front of us, both in the near term, where we see clear paths to drive meaningful progress, and over the medium term, where the growth potential is even greater. We are focused, well-positioned, and confident in the investments we are making, the operational efficiencies we are realizing, and the value we are building for stakeholders. With that, we can now take your questions.

Speaker 2

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press STAR, then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press STAR, then two. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you have further questions, you may re-enter the question queue. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Steve Wieczynski with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hey guys, good morning. Marc, you gave us a lot of color around the Epic opening, and it sounds like visitation into the Orlando parks continues to be up year over year, even through July, which I think is probably a little bit surprising to some folks. I guess my question is, did you guys do anything to maybe drive that visitation? Meaning, if I look at your costs in the second quarter, they were obviously a little bit higher than we were expecting. Some of that sounds like it was from you guys not being aggressive enough around labor tied to weather. Wondering if you guys were a little bit more aggressive on the marketing side of things to kind of drive that visitation into the Orlando parks to help maybe offset some of the impact from Epic.

Speaker 0

Yeah, hey Steve, I can take that question. Just to make one quick comment, I mean, I said the attendance was actually through yesterday. It was up at SeaWorld Orlando for the quarter to date on a day-to-day basis. That's through August 6th. As far as what we did, obviously we were well aware Epic was coming. I think you can imagine that we do look at our marketing and make certain adjustments and tweaks to that in response to things we know that are coming. I would agree with you that we probably put a little more emphasis than maybe normal on that. Obviously, we had some weather impacts in the second quarter where we had to be a little more promotional than we would probably normally like to be. Can't wait around for the weather to get better.

That drove some promotions as well, kind of across the company.

Okay, gotcha. Marc, I want to ask about deferred revenues, which are down about 10% year over year. I'm just trying to square that up with your commentary around forward indicators in terms of group bookings, Discovery Cove bookings, that you said have been pretty solid, I think, all the way out through early into 2026. I'm trying to understand maybe why that deferred is down so much. Maybe that is some pricing pressure around pass products. Just trying to understand and square that away a little bit better. Thanks.

Yeah, on the deferred revenue, I mean, there's a number of factors, as Jim mentioned, but certainly you have the different mix of products in that bucket. Whether it's the type of pass that people acquire or anything like that can have an impact on that. We obviously have sold less passes than we'd like with the pass base being down. That did get a little bit better, as Jim mentioned, in July. You have this dynamic of people that have passes over time, over after a year, they cycle out of deferred revenue. There's a variety of factors. Certainly, some of the promotions that we had to do around the weather had an impact as well. We'll have to kind of live with those for a little while till they cycle through.

I think the point we were trying to make a little bit is, while the deferred revenue is down, like you noted for the quarter, we do see good indicators in Discovery Cove and in group bookings and the Hall of Scream sales as well. Those give us some confidence that that at least is headed in the right direction. Pass sales did get a little better in July as well.

Speaker 2

You have to also remember that there is some rolloff to month-to-month. We have experienced the month-to-month rolloff, and we do continue to have pass visitation has continued to range in kind of that 40% range for us historically. That's been pretty steady. Between that and what Marc said about the pass sales and kind of what we have queued up for next year, I think we're in a good spot. Thank you. Our next question will come from James Hardiman with Citi. Please go ahead.

Good morning. To Steve's question, I think you mentioned maybe a little bit more marketing given the Epic opening. I wanted to ask about per caps, specifically admissions per caps being down 4%. I doubt you're going to share this number, but you've given us a lot of info on Orlando. Are you able to share what the Orlando per caps look like? Ultimately, the question is, have you gotten more aggressive in Orlando given that Epic opening?

Speaker 0

Yeah, hey James, I can take that question. I'm not going to break out the per caps by park. I mean, I think attendance is a good metric. I can tell you, you know, revenue for the second quarter was positive at SeaWorld Orlando. You can read into that what you'd like. Clearly, with the weather we had really kind of coming out of May or around Memorial Day and into June, we had to be more promotional than we'd like. That's being smart though. We have to react to these situations. Can't wait for weather to get better. That puts some pressure on those per caps, not only in Orlando, but across the company. Going forward, if we can have a more normalized weather pattern, we do feel optimistic that, again, like we've said repeatedly, over time we think we can grow our admissions per cap and our pricing.

We're always going to defer though to driving more total revenue. There are going to be times that we do things that might be at odds with per cap, but are a better total revenue play.

Makes sense. You've called out a few different factors moving the numbers. I don't know if you'll quantify any of these, but I guess as I think about the weather headwinds, you've quantified that at times in the past. It sounds like there was a calendar benefit, any way to quantify that, and then the marketing that you taught, the increased marketing. Any quantification on any of those three?

Yeah, I mean, I think what I can tell you is I'll just give you a little more color. You know, the Easter benefit, if you will, in the second quarter, like we said, was almost entirely offset by bad weather in the quarter. Those kind of neutralized each other, unfortunately. That gives you a little more color on that. I don't know that we'll share much more than that.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Our next question will come from Thomas Yeh with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Appreciate it. I just wanted to maybe dig into the underlying trends if we kind of remove that weather timing and the Easter timing. I think up here cited some low-end consumer value consciousness at the margin that's been seeping into the market a little bit. Is that something that you've been seeing as well?

Speaker 0

Yeah, hey Thomas, I can help you on that. Look, we don't see anything materially obvious on the consumer. What I typically look at would be our impact spend, and it was almost flat for the quarter, down $0.15, which is a very small decline. I think if there was some significant headwind, you would see it show up in there. The other thing I would point out is that our pass sales did improve in July, as Jim Mikolaichik mentioned. Our early Hall of Scream sales are positive as well. One that I think is really impressive is Discovery Cove here in Orlando, which is our most expensive park by a lot. That park is on pace for a record attendance year. If you were to see some sort of consumer pullback, I think in one of these areas I just mentioned, you would have seen it.

There is nothing like the materially obvious that we're seeing. Having said that, it probably didn't help that some of the economic uncertainty and some of the noise around the economy was happening at times where we saw a lot of passes. I don't think it was a benefit by any means to us. It probably didn't help us. Like I said, there are some other indicators that, from where we sit, look like we're still able to hang in there. If anything, the forward indicators give us confidence that people are still wanting to come to our park and buy our products.

Understood. That's helpful. Did I hear you correctly that you expect two MOUs on the hotel initiative? You said stay tuned, but just maybe any help on shaping that from a capital intensity appetite perspective and how much you think you might be putting into growth CapEx for that.

Yeah, you did hear me correct. We would expect... Sorry, Thomas, did you say hotels or MOUs? I'm sorry.

Oh, I was asking about the MOUs and then also on the hotel initiative, whether or not there's any expectation on...

Yeah, okay. You heard me correctly on the MOUs. I said we would expect to sign two of those, right? That is related to international opportunities. I think you can expect probably something in line with how we did Abu Dhabi from a Capital Light standpoint. On the hotels, I don't have anything more specific to share with you as far as how that may or may not impact our capital spending. Obviously, there's a variety of structures you could look at, a variety of ways you could structure those things. I think you're obviously familiar with the makeup of our board and the folks on our board and the private equity component of having Hillpath on our board. They're obviously very involved in the business and certainly very involved in the hotel discussions and what that may or may not ultimately look like.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Our next question will come from Elizabeth Dove with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi there, thanks for taking the question. You mentioned that the SeaWorld Orlando attendance was up, and I think that means that the kind of non-Orlando parks was down, which, looking at the foot traffic data for a while, it feels has been the case for the last year or so. Particularly, let's say the Busch Gardens parks, what has been the gating factor here? Are there drivers you can pull to turn the attendance trends around there, whether it's new rides or any other initiatives you have?

Speaker 0

Yeah, I can take that question. Look, I think we have to do a better job and have more opportunity, certainly in like Busch Gardens Tampa, for example. There's a variety of reasons, some of which obviously has been the weather in that area. We had a pretty meaningful hurricane impact in that park last year. The weather has not been ideal for the second quarter in Florida as well. Some of it certainly is weather. It's a great park, has a lot of great attractions. I'm not sure that the awareness is where we'd like it to be, and that's certainly, I think, an area where we can improve. A lot of opportunity there. That park does have, I would argue, one of the more popular Halloween events, and I think we can play that up more, and we're looking forward to doing that going forward.

Certainly some opportunity there.

Great. Just as a follow-up, obviously not referring to record EBITDA for this year anymore. You mentioned in the release meaningful increases in revenue and EBITDA. I'm not sure if that's like a this year comment specifically or the rest of this year comment. Curious just now, what's changed in terms of any expectations for the second half specifically and what you're kind of factoring in, assumptions around how attendance can trend, per caps, costs. That'd be super helpful. Thanks.

Yeah, look, I think my general comment on the ability to grow is kind of something we talk about every quarter. That's meant to be more over time and how we think about things. I did have a specific comment, obviously, on the second half. The way we kind of think about the second half is, like I said, the quarter-to-date attendance through August 6th, if you look on a day-to-day basis for the company, is slightly positive for the quarter. We had a challenging July with the shift of the 4th of July from a Thursday to a Friday. What we could clearly see is that the one-day shift essentially was almost like losing a holiday day. I think last year a lot of people had a four-day weekend. This year it was a three-day weekend. That had an impact on us.

We also had some challenging weather in some of our markets over the 4th of July. The rest of July had some positives and some negatives, but ended up being down and not something we liked. We've made that attendance up here in August. That's good that we've made up that lost July attendance here in August. Some of that is we have some better weather comparisons, but sitting here today, like I said, quarter-to-date through yesterday, we're slightly positive on a day-to-day basis in attendance. We still have big weekends ahead of us and still have the conclusion of our events to wrap up the summer. We'll start our Halloween events, which generally have been pretty popular over the years, and then we'll move into Christmas. A couple other things, pass sales improved in July, as you heard Jim Mikolaichik talk about.

Hall of Scream ticket sales for the separately ticketed event are positive. We like our Halloween event, so that's good to see that. The Discovery Cove and group bookings are positive for the rest of the year. Obviously, we know we have some pretty meaningful weather benefits ahead of us, especially around the hurricanes that we had last year that were more in end of Q3 and into Q4. Obviously, part of our assumption is that we're going to have better or improved weather than last year. Hopefully we won't have the type of hurricanes we had last year. Our assumption would be the weather normalizes and we pick up some pretty meaningful attendance from not having such a significant hurricane impact as last year. We have to execute on the cost plan that Jim and I both spoke about. We're focused on executing on that plan.

I think the other thing we have to see is improvement in our admissions per cap. Some of the really early indicators on sales, I think it's at least headed in the right direction. Still negative, I think, for the quarter right now, but it appears to be moving in the right direction. That'll be something that we have to see continue to improve. Obviously, another assumption would be getting our impact per cap back to positive. The one thing I'll kind of leave you with is kind of a long answer, but I do think historically the Halloween and Christmas seasons are distinct and separate in many ways from the summer.

Just because you had to maybe do things in the summer, whether it was reacting to weather with certain promotions and things like that, I don't know that you necessarily have to repeat that or would be expected to repeat that into the fall and winter. It's almost like you're resetting kind of the business. We're resetting, I think, into what traditionally has been a strength of ours with our Halloween and Christmas events. Putting that all together, that's kind of how we think about the second half of the year.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Our next question will come from Arpine Kocharyan with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you so much for taking my question. I'm sorry, I'm hopping between calls this morning, very busy morning still. I'm sorry if I missed, but you had previously alluded to slightly over $700 million of EBITDA as a benchmark you should be able to hit this year in terms of full year performance. Your release does not have that guidance, of course, and you did mention expectations of solid sort of performance for the back half. I was wondering if you could give us your updated thoughts whether you can still sort of come in in that range for the year.

Speaker 0

Yeah, hey, it's Marc. I don't know if you just kind of caught my answer I just gave Lizzie, but you know, we're not guiding to anything, but I did walk you through kind of the ins and outs of how we think about things. I can do that maybe quickly again if you'd like. Obviously, our attendance on a day-to-day basis through yesterday is slightly positive quarter to date. Like I said, we were down in July. We made that up here at the start of August. The shift of 4th of July was a negative for us. The weather around 4th of July in some of our markets was a negative. We're getting the benefit here in August of some better weather relative to last year. Kind of where we sit today, our attendance is slightly positive.

That kind of then hopefully sets us up for some big weekends still ahead of us in August and into Labor Day. Our Halloween events are starting as well. Eventually our Christmas events, which traditionally have been, like I said, stronger events for us and have a fair amount of popularity to them. Our Hall of Scream ticket sales for the parks where it's separately ticketed, those are positive to date. That's good. Our Discovery Cove and group bookings are also positive for the rest of the year. We would expect to have a meaningful weather benefit in late Q3 and into Q4 with the hurricanes, I guess, but especially Hurricane Milton that we had last year. One caveat would be assuming we don't have any big hurricanes, we would expect to hopefully pick up just with improved weather alone.

We have to execute on the cost savings that Jim and I talked about. We're focused and have a plan to try to deliver on those cost savings. We need to see, I think, improvement in admissions per cap and impact per cap. Again, there's some signs that those are heading in the right direction. Still negative for the quarter to date it looks like. There's still preliminary numbers, but I think moving in the right direction. The point I was really trying to wrap up with was that I think you have an opportunity here with summer concluding, you kind of reset the business and you move into a different phase of the business with Halloween and Christmas that traditionally, I would argue, has been one of our stronger parts of the year.

If you look at the growth in Halloween, the growth in Christmas, that's certainly been something that we've been able to take advantage of. I'm confident that the product we have coming out this year is going to be as good as ever. If we can just execute our plans, not have any really big weather impacts, I like the opportunity to have a better second half, obviously.

Thank you. That's very helpful. Just a quick follow-up. Would you agree that folks that are actually showing up are spending less? There's this broader takeaway that the customer might be showing up, but spending a little bit. What patterns are you seeing? There are differences between kind of different cohorts. On admissions per cap, that can vary, I understand, a bit depending on sort of pass mix and other things that you're doing to drive visitation. In park spend, you guys have historically done a pretty good job on that. Do you still expect that to be up for the year, just the in park spend of per cap spend? Thanks.

We've had pretty good success with our in park spend over the last many, many quarters, right? Until, you know, in this quarter, we were slightly down. I'm optimistic we can get those issues corrected. We are moving into, you know, and ultimately, you know, get to a positive in in park. We're moving into Halloween and Christmas, which have quite a bit of opportunity to drive in park spend around them. We'll have to see how we execute, but certainly, you know, we were disappointed. We were a little negative in the quarter. Again, some of that was driven by having to be a little more promotional than we normally would like to be because of the weather. I think we can hopefully get that corrected, and certainly that's one of the things we're focused on.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Our next question will come from Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking the question. Marc, you just kind of mentioned that in the Halloween and Christmas, and as you say, have greater awareness and maybe you're a little bit more unique, and also maybe a little bit more adult-themed. The question is, have you guys historically, or can you almost reverse engineer and tie these fall and winter events into opportunities to sell people for summer? Is that already going on, or can it happen since summer tends to be a little bit more, I don't want to say commoditized, but a little bit more commoditized on a national level?

Speaker 0

I think what you were kind of asking was, you know, is there opportunities to kind of leverage the popularity of Halloween and Christmas to maybe have a better summer, right? Is that kind of what you're asking, Chris?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Certainly, we need to do a better job of that, but it is an opportunity, like you said. One of the things we really try to do, like in some of our parks, we've already started to sell season passes for next year. One of the things we talk about is, hey, get your pass now, and you can still enjoy the summer, but maybe more exciting to that person buying the pass is, hey, you're also going to get to be able to come around Halloween and Christmas. We know people like coming to Halloween and Christmas. If we can give them a reason to secure that product and also have some hook to come in the summer as well, those are things that we're going to continue to try to do. I think that's certainly an opportunity for us going forward.

Okay, very helpful. Thanks, Marc.

Speaker 2

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Marc Swanson, CEO, for any closing remarks.

Speaker 0

Thanks, Wyatt. On behalf of Jim Mikolaichik and the rest of the management team here at United Parks & Resorts Inc., I want to thank you for joining us this morning. As you heard today, we are confident in our long-term strategy, which we believe will drive improved operating financial results and long-term value for stakeholders. Thank you very much, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Speaker 2

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.