SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc.

All our parks were operating with capacity limitations and or modified or limited operations at the beginning of the quarter. By the end of the second quarter, all 12 parks were open and operating without COVID-19 related capacity limitations. Our pricing and product strategies, along with the strong consumer demand environment, continued to drive higher realized pricing and strong guest spending resulting in record total revenue per capita in the quarter. We continue to see success with our strategic pricing initiatives and our quarterly events, including new or expanded food, beverage, and entertainment events at some of our parks, as well as several new or reimagined venues we have launched during the past few quarters, which also helped give guests more reasons to spend. On the merchandise side, we have refreshed our retail offerings by adding new products and improving the product mix. These and other initiatives have all contributed to the increase in guest spending, and we are encouraged by these successes as our guests have been returning to our parks over the last few months. Looking to July, we continued to generate strong performance versus 2019 with our attendance down approximately 7% and revenue up approximately 13%. We are very proud to have recently received recognition from USA Today readers for having some of the best parks and attractions in the country. SeaWorld Orlando was voted best amusement park in the United States. The Mako Roller Coaster at SeaWorld Orlando was voted Best Roller Coaster in the United States. Aquatica Orlando was voted Best Outdoor Water Park in the United States. And Celtic Fire at Busch Gardens Williamsburg was voted Best Amusement Park Entertainment in the United States. Several of our other parks and attractions received top 10 rankings as well. We are thrilled to receive these awards and proud of the ambassadors in our parks that help deliver amazing guest experiences. We are on schedule of our build out of Sesame Place in San Diego and look forward to opening that park next year. And SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, the first SeaWorld park outside of the United States, is also on track to complete construction by the end of 2022. We continue to closely study additional business development opportunities to grow the company, including hotels located on or nearby our existing parks and other potential international development locations. On the technology front, we have rolled out our new mobile app for the SeaWorld and Aquatica parks, and the remainder of the parks will be online later this year. We did extensive testing and received positive feedback from beta users, and now guests in our SeaWorld and Aquatica parks can use the app to navigate the park, order food, make purchases, or check schedules and wait times. We expect to expand this capability over time and anticipate positive impacts on in-park spending as guests adopt and use the app. Also, we have selected our CRM system provider and are beginning to migrate our data to the new system, which will eventually lead to full CRM capabilities. Once complete, we anticipate that our marketing, analytics, and business capabilities will significantly improve, allowing us to better understand and engage with our guests, which we expect to lead to reduced overall marketing costs increased visitation, and increased overall revenue opportunities. Looking to the next few months, we have an outstanding lineup of fall events. Next month, we will begin our award-winning Halloween events, including our daytime, family-oriented SeaWorld Spooktacular event at the SeaWorld parks, and our nighttime Hollow Scream event at all our Busch Gardens and SeaWorld parks, including for the first time ever, SeaWorld Orlando and SeaWorld San Diego. We are excited about adding this event for our thrill-seeking adult guests in Orlando and San Diego. There will also be craft beer and cultural festivals at several of our parks. We believe there is something for everyone to enjoy this fall. Our teams have worked hard to operate our parks in an extraordinary environment and better position this company for revenue growth and increased profitability. As we have demonstrated in the second quarter, we believe the strategies we have developed and refined over the past few years, along with the actions we have taken throughout the past year, will continue to lead to significantly improved financial results for the company. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Elizabeth to discuss our financial results in more detail. Elizabeth?

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. As you know, we typically discuss our results for each quarter in comparison to the prior year's quarter. Given the disruption we experienced last year when we temporarily closed all of our parks on March 16, 2020, we believe a comparison of our results to the second quarter of 2019 provides a more meaningful insight on our performance and operating trajectory. As such, like last quarter, I'll provide commentary around our financial results compared to 2019. For those interested, we provide a comparison versus both 2019 and 2020 in our earnings release, and we'll do so as well in our Form 10-Q, which we plan to file tomorrow. As Mark mentioned, our second quarter results were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, With a return to more normalized operations towards the end of the quarter, along with the work we have done in both revenue management and our cost savings initiatives, we reported record total revenue, record net income, and record adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. During the quarter, we generated record total revenue of $439.8 million, an increase of $33.8 million. or 8.3% when compared to the second quarter of 2019. The increase in revenue is primarily due to an increase in total revenue per capita of 20.5%, partially offset by a decline in attendance of 10.1%. When compared to the second quarter of 2019, attendance declined primarily due to COVID-19 related impacts, including capacity limitations, and or modified or limited operations at our parks for some of the second quarter. Attendance was also impacted by decline from international guest visitation and group events. Including international and group events guests, attendance would have increased by approximately 3% when compared to the second quarter of 2019. Our pricing and product strategies along with a strong consumer demand environment, continue to drive higher realized pricing and strong guest spending, resulting in record total revenue per capita in the quarter of $75.71 compared to $62.82 in the second quarter of 2019, an increase of 20.5%, driven by improvements in both admissions per capita and in-park per capita spending. Admissions per capita increased by 18.8% to $41.87, and in-park per capita spending increased by 22.7% to $33.84 in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the second quarter of 2019. The increase in admissions per capita primarily relates to the realization of higher prices in our admissions products, resulting from our strategic pricing efforts, along with the net impact of the admissions product mix when compared to the second quarter of 2019. In-park per capita spending improved primarily due to increased guest spending, higher realized prices and fees, an improved product mix, and new, enhanced, and or expanded in-park offerings. We generated record net income of $127.8 million, compared to net income of $52.7 million in the second quarter of 2019. We generated record adjusted EBITDA of $218.8 million, an increase of $69.1 million, or 46.2%, when compared to the second quarter of 2019. The improvement in adjusted EBITDA resulted primarily from a combination of increased total revenue and a decrease in both operating expenses and selling general and administrative expenses, which together offset the decline in attendance that occurred primarily as a result of the impact of COVID-19. The decrease in these expenses primarily related to reduction in labor-related costs as well as marketing and other operating costs resulting from structural cost savings initiatives and the impact of modified or limited operations due to COVID-19 for most of the quarter. Looking at our results for the first half of 2021 compared to 2019, total revenue was $611.7 million, a decrease of $14.9 million, or 2.4%. Total attendance was 8 million guests. a decrease of 1.8 million guests, or 18.1%. Net income for the period was $82.9 million, an improvement of $67.2 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $244 million, an improvement of $77.9 million, or 46.9%. Now, turning to our balance sheet. Our current deferred revenue balance as of the end of the second quarter was $238.7 million, an increase of approximately 46.3% when compared to June of 2019. We continue to be very encouraged with the trends we're seeing in our pass base. Our pass base grew approximately 53% between the first quarter and July of 2021. At the end of July of 2021, our pass base was up approximately 14% compared to July of 2019 and is approximately 12% higher than the peak pass base we had in 2019. We are also seeing a higher mix of premium passes in our pass base as our pass holders continue to recognize the value and benefits of our higher tiered products. Additionally, we continue to see the impact of our pricing strategies taking hold, with stronger realized prices on our past sales versus 2019 and 2020. As of June 30, 2021, our total available liquidity was approximately $927.8 million, including $615.8 million of cash and cash equivalents on our balance sheet, and $312 million available on a revolving credit facility. Cash flow from operations was a record $229.7 million in the second quarter and $248.1 million for the first six months of 2021. Free cash flow was a record $200 million in the second quarter and $203.1 million for the first six months of 2021. We spent $29.7 million on CapEx in the second quarter of 2021, of which approximately $20.8 million was on core CapEx and approximately $8.9 million when it's on expansion or RRI projects. For 2021, we still plan on spending between approximately $120 million and $150 million on capital expenditures. Lastly, On July 14th, 2021, we redeemed $50 million of our 9.5% second priority senior secured notes. Together with our board, we continually evaluate the company's capital structure with an objective of maximizing shareholder value. Now, let me turn the call back over to Mark, who will share some final thoughts. Mark.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Before we open the call to your questions, I have some closing comments. In the second quarter, we helped rescue over 500 animals and have exceeded 39,100 animal rescues over the company's history. We are one of the world's leading animal rescue organizations, and we are proud of our efforts to protect and save wildlife. We want to thank our employee ambassadors for their continued dedication and effort to welcome guests while operating our parks in accordance with the latest health and safety protocols. As always, we are focused on providing a safe and fun guest experience while continuing to offer innovative special events and creating new events for our guests to enjoy our parks. Despite the progress we have made, we continue to believe there are significant additional opportunities to improve our execution, take advantage of clear growth opportunities, and continue to drive meaningful growth in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We continue to have high confidence in our long-term strategy and in our ability to deliver significantly improved operating and financial results that will lead to meaningfully increased value for stakeholders. Now, let's take your questions.