Six Flags Entertainment Corporation Common Stock New

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Six Flags 2025 second quarter earnings conference 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'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Six Flags management. Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Russell, Corporate Director of Investor Relations for Six Flags. Welcome to today's earnings call to review Six Flags Entertainment Corporation's 2025 second quarter financial results. Earlier this morning, we issued two press releases, including our earnings release for the second quarter and another release announcing a leadership change. Copies of these press releases are available under the News tab of our Investor Relations website at investors.sixflags.com. Before we begin, I need to remind you that comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those described in such statements. For a more detailed discussion of these risks, you may refer to the company's filings with the SEC. In compliance with the SEC's Regulation FD, This webcast is being made available to the media and 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.

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Before we discuss our financial results, I want to address the leadership announcement we made this morning. I will be stepping down as president and CEO by the end of 2025. I plan to remain in the role until my successor is appointed, and I will work closely with the board to identify the next leader to guide Six Flags forward. I will continue to serve as a director of the company, So I will remain actively involved in overseeing the continued execution of our strategic plan. This will be a smooth, orderly succession process. To put this in some context, I've been in the entertainment industry for 38 years, and I've seen it evolve and change. For most of that time, it has been a goal of mine to help create a leading North American operator that can cater to all ages and entertainment styles. With the successful combination of Cedar Fair and Legacy Six Flags completed last summer, we've now done that, and I couldn't be prouder of what we've accomplished so far. With that said, we've only just scratched the surface of the enormous potential of our combined company. As you'll hear us discuss in more detail this morning, we experienced some macro and weather-related headwinds in the second quarter. Even so, July was strong, and the leading indicators heading into August look good thus far. We are also making great progress on integration and synergy realization. So despite the rainy weekends we saw back in May and June, I've never been more confident in our strategy to optimize our assets or more optimistic in the long-term value potential and opportunities for Six Flags. With that in mind, the board and I have decided that now is the right time to begin the process of finding our company's next leader, someone who will build on the progress we've made so far and propel Six Flags to its full potential. Like I've said, I've been doing this for a long time, and in many ways, my career has already been more satisfying than I could have ever hoped. Being able to offer family experiences that are unique, engaging, and memorable has been incredibly rewarding. And along the way, we have created a powerful new industry leader with incredibly bright prospects for long-term value creation for our guests, our associates, and our shareholders. I want to thank my entire Six Flags team for all the hard work and dedication that's gotten us to this point. We have plenty of seasons still ahead of us, including some of our most popular events and some of our biggest attendance days, and we're going to make sure they go off without a hitch. I remain more committed than ever to Six Flags success, and over the coming months, I will ensure we are executing our strategy and working diligently to achieve our objectives of increasing adjusted EBITDA, reducing net leverage, and delivering on our integration efforts. Before I review the second quarter and the challenges we face, I want to start with where we are right now. because the story has changed. July has been a turning point. As weather has normalized and guests have a chance to experience our new rides and other attractions, we are seeing a surge in demand for our parks, while sales of season passes and memberships are climbing fast. While we know we have ground to make up from a tough May and June, these results send a clear message. When the gates are open and the product is strong, people will visit. Now on to our early season performance. While results over the first half of the year fell well below our expectation, it does not alter our goal of delivering a strong second half, nor our conviction in the long-term potential of Six Flags. Our financial results through the first six months of the year reflect a significant decline in attendance, driven by lower renewal rates and sales of season passes, as well as disrupted demand for single-day visits, all largely influenced by macro factors, including extreme weather conditions coupled with economic uncertainty. and not reflective of a loss of consumer interest. As a result of these temporary macro headwinds, we believe many guests delayed park visits during the early weeks of our operating season, making fewer impulse buys, delaying purchases of season passes and memberships, and displaying a more value conscious mindset. In our business, the impact of short-term macro level disruptions such as weather are amplified earlier in the year. When visitation urgency is lower, and there are plenty of opportunities to still visit later in the season. The second half of the year has historically been the defining period for our business. As the saying goes, we make hay when the sun shines. In 2017 and 18, and as recently as 2023, macro factors weighed on the first half performance at Legacy Cedar Fair, yet a return to normalized conditions, solid capital programs, and a heightened urgency to visit combined to strive strong rebounds in the second half of those seasons. Years like these underscore the resiliency of our model, the strength of our brands, and the importance of our ability to execute during the peak summer and fall seasons when we generate the majority of our annual attendance, revenues, and adjusted EBITDA. We see a similar opportunity in the back half of 2025. Our job is to manage through short-term disruptions and focus on the things we can control And that is exactly what we've done and will continue to do. To stimulate early season demand and drive season pass sales, we introduced several attractive limited duration promotional offers during the second quarter. At the same time, we pulled forward advertising dollars from the second half of the year to increase consumer awareness and combat some of the macro headwinds we saw developing. While these initiatives did not offset the combination of inclement weather and softer consumer demand in the first half, We expect they will benefit the business in the second half and the longer term. We've also added operating hours and staffing where most appropriate, making sure all of our rides, attractions and revenue centers are fully operational and available to the guests to enjoy when they visit. At certain parks, this lifted seasonal labor and maintenance costs, which we've moved to offset with cost reduction elsewhere while maintaining the integrity of the guest experience. We will continue to look for second half expense offsets to balance out our full year spending in these areas, and we remain confident we can deliver on our full year cost reduction goals. We have also taken decisive actions to address the shortfall in this year's active pass space. The launch of our 2026 season pass program includes a reimagined pass structure that features an offer for an expanded all-park pass benefit for our top tier pass buyers. This is intended to leverage the appeal of the all-park past benefit and tap into the strong pent-up demand from customers who have delayed their purchases in the spring. As we get deeper into the new season pass cycle, we will offer additional enhancements as well as we roll into 2026, including regional pass options, the introductions of memberships at the legacy Cedar Fair parks, and a comprehensive loyalty program that extends across the entire portfolio. These programmatic changes are designed to strengthen annual pass renewal rates attract new customers, and create a more robust and consistent recurring revenue stream. While we work to improve top-line performance, cost discipline remains a top priority. A significant restructuring of our organization completed in the second quarter flattened our layers of leadership, consolidated duplicative functions, and improved the overall agility of our teams. These strategic measures will permanently reduce our full-time labor costs by more than 20 million on an annualized basis, enable us to operate more effectively as a unified company. Significant progress has also been made by our team to harmonize our technology stacks, including our ticketing platforms, ERP suite, and our safety and maintenance systems. This and other IT refinements allow us to simplify administrative functions, further the organizational structure, and will advance incremental cost savings into the future. Combined with additional cost savings we are uncovering through our centralized procurement and purchasing functions, these collective efforts support our goal of reducing 2025 full-year operating costs and expenses before adjusted EBITDA add-backs by 3% compared to last year's combined cost base. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian for a more detailed review of our financial results. After his remarks, I'll return to address guidance and offer some closing thoughts. Brian?