FUN Q4 2025 Earnings

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Ellie, and I will be your conference operator today.

providing an update on select balance sheet items as well as early performance indicators for the season ahead. For the fourth quarter, we are in the middle of our guidance range, delivering adjusted EBITDA of $165 million on attendance of 9.3 million guests and revenues of $650 million. Two dynamics impacted the quarter. First, results for the quarter were up against a record performance in October of 2024, which we discussed on our last earnings call.

Secondly, operating days and the winter holiday calendar mattered a lot. We operated 779 days in the fourth quarter of 2025 versus 878 days last year. As was expected, and as we discussed last quarter, a significant portion of the decline in operating days reflects our decision not to operate winter holiday events at four parks, a decision that was made earlier in the year. In hindsight, that decision did not optimize profits at every part the way we needed it to.

Those events can be meaningful demand drivers, and removing them created a self-inflicted headwind in terms of both attendance and operating leverage. We're taking that learning directly into our planning for 2026, and we will rethink the winter holiday strategy with a tighter returns-driven approach, market by market, rather than applying a broad brush. And while weather created variability in the quarter with 15 park closure days versus three last year, the more significant impact on demand was our decision to eliminate the winter holiday events, which created an attendance headwind of approximately 425,000 visits.

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

For the full year, we produced net revenues of $3.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $792 million, while entertaining 47.4 million guests, and delivering per capita spending of $61.90. Similar to the quarter, the year reflects a mix of strong guest spending and execution gaps that impacted attendance and operating efficiency, particularly around the operating calendar. We're using those outcomes as inputs into a tighter operating plan for the upcoming season with a focus on consistency and repeatability across the portfolio.

As we noted on our last earnings call, this past season taught us a lot. It proved to be a tale of two cohorts. Our best performing parks overcame their operating challenges. And in several instances, parks delivered record or near record years.

At the same time, there were other parks in our portfolio that weren't as well positioned to withstand the operating challenges. The stark difference in park performance reinforces the notion that some of the profitability challenges we faced in 2025 were episodic and execution related. rather than structural or systemic in nature. This distinction matters as we strategize our path forward.

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

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

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

Thanks, Brian. Let me build on that with how we're approaching the business as we plan for 2026. While demand was pressured this past year, spending by guests who did visit remained solid. That and the early, strong response to changes we've made to our past programs that Brian just mentioned tells me something important.

The revenue engine is intact. This is not a broken model, but one that requires sharper execution, clearer focus, and tighter alignment between commercial strategy and operations. The opportunity is to run this portfolio with greater consistency. more disciplined decision-making, and a refined playbook to convert demand into durable earnings and stronger cash generation.

I'm early in my tenure, and I won't pretend to have every answer, but I've spent my career in this industry, and I know what high-performing parks look like. And what I see across this portfolio are very addressable opportunities that can unlock meaningful upside under disciplined execution. First, We're evaluating how we go to market. We operate powerful regional brands, and we must deploy them with greater precision.

Our guests are not identical market to market, and our marketing strategy should not be either. Over the past year, we saw the same promotion produce very different outcomes across regions. This is not a demand problem. It's an opportunity for us to better tailor our efforts to our local communities by applying tighter test and learn disciplines.

Marketing then becomes a demand lever, not just a traffic driver. Pricing is part of that same reset. Our architecture must be simpler, clearer, easier to communicate across ticket types, passes, and add-ons, with fewer and stronger offers that improve conversion and yield. Better alignment between promotional timing, operating calendars, staffing levels, not simply to produce more demand, but more profitable demand.

Second, We're driving consistency of execution and margin expansion. This business rewards operational excellence. A portfolio of our size should benefit from scale, and our guests should experience reliability everywhere. Parks open on time, rides operating consistently, clean park environments, energized teams.

To deliver that, we have tightened our operating procedures, established clear standards, to find measurable KPIs and develop protocols for rapid follow-through. A critical lever in this effort is throughput, how efficiently we move guests through every touchpoint. I've spent time observing where friction occurs, entry gates, parking flow, food service, retail counters, and ride operations. Throughput directly influences guest satisfaction, in-park spending, and improves cost efficiency.

Third, we're applying disciplined ROI standards to our business decisions. Every investment must answer a simple question. Does it enhance the guest experience in a way that drives profitable demand, reduces costs, or strengthens free cash flow? And does it do so at returns that justify the investment?

That discipline applies to events, rides, and attractions at every level. Our experience with several winter holiday events this past year provided valuable lessons. We will approach seasonal programming with market-specific rigor, clear ROI thresholds, and test and scale methodology. It applies equally to capital investment.

Safety and ride reliability are non-negotiable. Beyond that, discretionary investments will prioritize projects that attract incremental visitors, improve throughput, enhance guest value, and generate measurable returns. And some of the highest ROI opportunities are operational improvements, reducing downtime, eliminating inefficiencies, and standardizing systems that allow our teams to perform at their best. Taken together, these actions are designed to accelerate attendance recovery, deepen guest engagement, and restore durable earnings power.

Let me wrap up with these closing thoughts. Our near-term priorities are clear. improving profitability, strengthening the balance sheet, concentrating our time and resources on the assets and initiatives that generate the highest returns. Six Flags is a company with unique assets and significant earnings potential.

Together, our teams are working to further our progress on elevating the guest experience, realizing the benefits of our incomparable scale to improve efficiency and margins, correcting missteps in marketing and operations, and continuing to create financial flexibility through deleveraging and disciplined capital allocation. We will be transparent about where we are. We will move decisively on what we can fix, and we will earn credibility and your trust the way it should be earned through execution and results.

The opportunity in front of us is meaningful. I'm energized by what I've seen across the parks. I'm confident in our path forward and excited about what we can deliver together. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

We are now opening the floor for question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of James Hardiman of Citi.

Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. And John, certainly welcome aboard. I think in your prepared remarks, I think you said something along the lines of you're not here to spend time in the past.

But I wanted to maybe take a minute and just get your thoughts on 2025 in its totality. You know, maybe do a brief postmortem here. in an effort to sort of diagnose some of the problems that you're going to be looking to solve for in 2026. And maybe specifically, and this is a question I get a lot, I'm sure a lot of other people get this question a lot, like how do we um put the various issues into into buckets right clearly there are some cyclical pressures here um clearly there were some weather issues uh in 2025 um i think you guys have spoken to maybe some unforced errors along the way and then there's this sort of secular piece right that i think a lot of people struggle to to identify much less quantify but you know ultimately is there changing consumer behavior here at play?

I think one of the other statements you made is that you think this is a resilient and growing industry. And so maybe maybe you don't think that there is, you know, meaningful changes there, but maybe help us put some of the issues into these categories so that we can get a better framework for the, you know, business going forward.

Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for the question, James. So when we say we're not here to dwell on the past, It doesn't mean we aren't taking the lessons that we've learned from 2025 and correcting missteps and addressing other opportunities as we see them.

So, you know, first, if you look at the consumer, we launched products in markets, as we said, that weren't sufficiently localized and in some markets that produced some abrupt changes as we were integrating. And in those markets, the consumers were used to different messaging. In some cases, they were confused about their benefits on passes, for example. In some cases, they were paying more for a pass than they felt they had paid in the past.

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

And our scale gives us that mandate. And you see in the numbers, we closed out at 27%. And we need to do better than that. And I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing internally, that the team is embracing this challenge and doing it the right way.

So we see opportunity on that front, and we're working to execute a number of initiatives there. The other thing I would say about 2025, James, is since joining the company, I've been surprised. I could see the performance from the outside, but since I've joined the company, I've been surprised at the level of foundational work that was done in the integration. So in parks, bringing coaster trains up to full capacity, as we had discussed, improvements in parks.

um our tech stack a lot of that work is behind us in terms so as you look forward at our capital spending it will be less in terms of i.t and technology going forward you know we have erp systems in place and then the condition of the parks has been a positive indicator for me i've been to 14 so far so i'll qualify that to say i haven't been everywhere and we have opportunities like like any part chain but uh it's better than i expected so i think in terms of the consumer We don't see any sign there's an issue with the consumer.

We think we can address that through our own behavior, through our own plans. In terms of margins, we're working clearly on that. And then I think a lot of the foundational work, especially in terms of the parks themselves, has been laid, which should help us as we go forward.

That's a really good outline. And maybe to the latter point about costs and margins, just curious to hear know your philosophy as it relates to to cost obviously there's a fine line between sort of streamlining the cost structure and you know impairing the the customer experience and and by extension the demand of of the business along the way so maybe speak to how you've um you know operationalize some of those cost savings at previous stops and then Brian, I think we've maybe lost a little bit of the thread in terms of the cost savings that were previously outlined.

Maybe give us an update. What's been completed? How much is left for 2026? And if there's anything incremental that's been identified.

Thanks. I'll start over and then I'll turn it over to Brian James. In terms of the line between the guest experience and cost savings, I think the thin line you mentioned, I'd say it's a red line. And that's what I've learned in doing this cost work.

in other chains. You have to protect the guest experience. It has to be a guardrail. Every initiative has to be weighed and measured, and you have to be willing to reverse if you do something that ends up with an unintended consequence.

What really works here, we gave some examples on the call, but we have these 300 ideas that were under evaluation. And maybe just some specific anecdotes will give you an idea of the power of this. You know, we have a suggestion from Magic Mountain where they're renting an air compressor for $32,000 a year. It will cost us $35,000 to buy one and take that rental out of the P&L forever at Knott's Berry Farm.

It will cost them $14,000 to buy a forklift that we can capitalize. It costs us $19,000 a year to rent it. And then there's a lot of ideas like that where they're just one-offs from parks and we can scale them across the enterprise. We haven't begun to do that work yet.

So storage units for events. We're in the event business in a big way. We're going to be in the event business as we go forward, but we're renting equipment that we could buy for the same price we could purchase it for. And then automation, parking lots, automated entry at tolls, other things.

Those can actually improve the guest experience while creating efficiency. And there are a lot of studies that show that guests actually prefer that type of frictionless entry. I'm confident that we'll do the cost work the right way. I've done this before.

We'll renew the initiatives because at the same time, we're working to improve the guest experience.

Yeah, James. And then as it relates to your follow-up, in terms of the original gross cost synergies that were part of the merger, we've effectively delivered on 100% of those by the end of 25.

But as John just outlined, you know, we're not satisfied or stopping there. We are going to continue to look for more meaningful opportunities to offset, you know, other cost pressures, other inflationary pressures that are in the business, whether that's through, you know, more efficiency initiatives, you know, a few of which John just, you know, gave some examples to, additional and further standardization of procedures and policies. And then, you know, as you are fully aware, right, labor is our largest single cost, you know, more labor productivity improvements in the system.

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

Next question comes from the line of . Your line is now open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. John, it is very clear you know and understand this business well. If you look at the performance for 2025, it was clear to even someone that's not an operator, right, that decremental margin at some of the underperforming parts was very large.

So my question is, do you feel like you have a good handle on capturing that this year, regardless of demand? In other words, a leaner organization that is more flexible to adapting to demand levels, or do you think it can take some time to get to that leaner organization?

Yeah, what I can tell you is that the work is underway to improve the margin, to work on these initiatives that we've mentioned, both in workforce deployment in efficiency automation and in other efficiency initiatives that we have underway in the company. I don't have a timeline today to get to a specific target. You know, I'm just joining here.

But as I said before, 27% gives us a mandate. And I've been quite encouraged by our team members who are embracing that and embracing doing it the right way. So we have to do it the right way. The work is underway.

we believe there's considerable opportunity over time. And then the last thing I think that you mentioned in terms of the organization, you know, getting the organization to do that, the what we're doing is important, but I think the why, the how is also very important. You know, we believe strongly in pushing more decisions back with local input to the parks. We believe in strongly in simplicity.

We need more urgency in the organization, more localization, and more accountability, quite frankly. So while we work on the initiatives, we're working in the spirit of more accountability, more localization, and more urgency in execution to get it done.

That's very helpful. Thank you. Then a quick follow-up. curious how you think about asset optimization and it could be early still since you as you said you just got there it is clear you know there are at least maybe six to eight parks that generate less than five percent of visa in this portfolio at the same time it seems to me it is not as straightforward um to even decide what can be pruned because there there will be underperforming parts that are uh worth investing in to improve operations and maybe their assets that It's not quite worthwhile to invest in.

How do you think about that?

Yeah, we approach asset evaluation through a disciplined return framework. We have rigorous work underway on that front in terms of assessing. But our highest ROI parks represent the core of the portfolio. And certainly, as you mentioned, they're done right.

This could benefit leverage to optimize the portfolio. But really, one of the opportunities that we're looking at is the strategic focus it gives us in order to be able to dedicate management time, expertise, know-how, capital investments, resource allocation. And I think that has, in the longer term, the potential to be the greater benefit.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Steve Wisinski of Stifel. Your line is now open.

Yeah. Hey, guys. Good morning. And John, welcome in.

So I guess my first question is around guidance or, you know, lack of guidance for this year. And Brian, you kind of touched on this in your prepared remarks.

But, you know, maybe wondering what, you know, what drove this. the decision not to kind of give formal guidance. And then maybe from a high-level perspective, you know, Brian, if you could give us some color on maybe how you think the year could play out, whether that's from an operating days perspective, whether that's from an attendance perspective, anything there would be helpful. And then, Brian, also, do you have forecasts for CapEx and interest this year as well?

Hey, Steve, it's John. I'll start and then turn things over to Brian on the latter part that you mentioned. Look, in terms of guidance, I just got here. I've been on the ground just a little bit over two months.

Now is not the time for me to come out with guidance. We're really early in the season. We have some nascent signs of growth, but it's too early to go down that road. And we want to earn your trust with execution and results over time.

And just for me, two months is not enough. We're confident, however, that we have the opportunity in volume, pricing, operating costs off the 2025 base to begin to deliver sequential improved results. I'll turn it over to Brian for the second part there.

Yes, Steve. In terms of operating days, as we alluded to in the prepared remarks, there's still work being done in the fields as we challenge our park leadership teams um to ensure that we're you know we're optimized on the operating day uh front and the operating calendar and so there's still an opportunity to see this move but if we look at 2020 our outlook for 26 uh sans the sunset park in bowie maryland um i would say that the overall operating days right now are expected to be up slightly maybe as much as one percent that could change as we get um Further into the year and the opportunity to potentially add back a winter holiday event as an example or two, those decisions will be made in the next several weeks.

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

Okay, gotcha. Thanks for that, Cutler. And then second question, back to you, John. You mentioned your preparing marks.

You have a history of working with so-called underperforming parks. So as you've kind of had the chance now to go through the portfolio, it sounds like you've been to about half of the portfolio at this point. What would you say, as you kind of think about the underperforming parks, what are some of the top two, three, four things that you can identify and potentially make changes to?

And I'm not sure that makes sense, but hopefully it does.

Yeah, I think it's a good question. So I'd say that the top takeaway I have as I've toured the parks and then as we've, Brian and I and the teams in the parks and in the Park Support Center here, is that the issues are not systemic. The issues are market by market, park by park. And for example, we have parks where price, maybe price was an issue.

in terms of lost opportunity. We have parks where attendance was an issue, and we have parks where cost was an issue. And then we have parks that, you know, where two of those factors were a factor. So I think the key for us is to approach these parks issue by issue and to address it that way.

So that's how we're approaching the 2026 plans for these parks. It's not systemic. In some parks, we have opportunities. And, you know, for example, as I traveled to Mexico, I mean, this is a great park in a great market with great weather.

And so, for example, we think in Mexico, it's a place to lean in, and we're going to add over 20 operating days in Mexico. So, you know, it really is case by case. That's a different situation than than many other parks. So it really varies by site.

Thanks for the call, guys. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Dave. If you'd like to ask questions, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Thomas Yeh,

of morgan stanley your line is now open thanks good morning i wanted to ask about the particular strength in per caps and 4q i know the shoulder season has some mixed factors to it but can you maybe just talk about the sustainability of that growth and brian i think you mentioned pass uptake improvement recognizing it's so early in the cycle Just relative to last year, can you share how units and pricing are pacing on a blended basis, given some of the uptake on the higher-priced regional passes?

Yeah, maybe I'll start with the latter. Thomas and then John can provide some color after that. But on the season pass side, we're not going to give specific – metrics at this point in large part because it is a small sample size, and I think sometimes, you know, the law of small numbers, right, some of these percentage year-over-year variances, you know, can be a little less informative than not.

But we are encouraged not only by the volume and the pickup in that, but also, you know, with the reconstructed architecture of the pass, you know, as we talked about even last year, moving over to a single unified ticketing platform is going to give us more opportunity, more flexibility around things like the regional pass. We're seeing folks migrate up to more higher-priced products, I guess I'd say it that way, and that's certainly helping at certain parks in regards to that average price.

Now, not all of our parks are in operation right now, as you know, Thomas, and so you've got not only a small sample size in terms of window of time, but also in terms of the parks that are in play. So, you know, there's more work to be done, but the team's very encouraged by the early signs there. In terms of per cap, you know, again, very encouraging.

Fourth quarter is not, especially as you get deeper into the quarter, not nearly as meaningful in terms of the number of parks in operation or the total number of days as, say, the third quarter.

But seeing the impact of some of the late season changes we made around promotions and pricing benefiting the admissions per cap, as well as then seeing guests continuing to spend inside the park on those in-park products like food and beverage, extra charge, attractions, to name a couple. It's very encouraging, and I think it supports what John said before, which is we don't see a problem with the consumer or the health of the consumer.

They are spending when they visit our parks, and our job is to just continue to find ways to improve that demand level.

And I'd say, this is John again, the... As we said, the solid spending that we saw is a sign that the revenue engine is intact, along with the regional pass that we've laid out.

But I'm taking the fourth quarter in part per caps with a bit of caution, because there's a lot of change in there with the reduction of the events, with the reduction of the operating days, with the change in both the mix of visitors by ticketing category because of the loss of the events, and the mix of parks because of the loss of events. So, you know, as we look at 2026, we expect growth in our in-park spending, but I think we're going to be careful about modeling what we saw in Q4 going forward because of the sort of noise in the quarter.

Okay. Understood. That's very helpful. And then one last one, just on the points about optimizing the investment structure and I wonder if you could just drill down a bit more on planned marketing spend.

Last year, I think you leaned into areas that didn't stimulate as much demand as you desired. Just maybe any insights on unpacking the right level for that. Was it an allocation issue or was it just kind of marketing into a weather situation that was the problem? How would you approach kind of taking that into the new season?

Yeah, so I'd look at a couple of factors when we look at our marketing spending. I would look at, number one, the timing of the spend is something that's under evaluation. So we need to be sure that we're putting it in the right period of year that gives us the highest return on the ad spend. So that's one thing that's under review.

We also have to look at the, you know, in terms of the power of the return on marketing, we have to look at the quality of creatives. So the team is doing a lot of work to address some creative that they don't feel was as effective as it should have been in last year. And then finally, in terms of our marketing spend, just more in a general sense, we have to look at our mix of awareness versus conversion spend.

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

Yeah, very helpful. Thank you.

question comes from the line of Adam Fox of Tourist Securities. Your line is now open.

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

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

Okay, thank you. I'll pass it along. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last question for today comes from the line of Anthony Bernie of Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. This is Anthony Owen for David Katz. Thanks for taking our questions. The first one is, can you talk a little bit about your capital allocation priorities?

How should we weigh deleveraging versus CapEx spend? And on CapEx, can you provide any ROIC targets that you have for that spending?

This is John. I'll start out. You know, first, what I would say is we have sufficient flexibility in our CapEx spend. You know, once we look at what's required for maintenance, which we would always do, the remainder, you know, there's a lot of discretion in terms of attraction investments and other investments.

I'd say in terms of a change in focus or an accelerated change in focus would be CapEx debted to efficiency and automation that we talked about early.

But we feel, you know, overall we have a good amount of flexibility in the plan, even when we address the maintenance CapEx as a given.

Yeah, and I think, Anthony, just maybe adding on to that, you know, as we've been very clear In addition to continue to reinvest in the parks and to drive growth, to mine more of those cost efficiencies, as John just mentioned. We're looking to those projects. We're going to focus those on our highest and best ROIs, certainly looking to exceed our weighted average cost of capital in any of those investments.

But our priority, in addition to growing the business through the right level, and we think that the 400 to 425 plan for 2026 is you know, includes a very attractive and comprehensive capital program. Beyond that, it's continuing to funnel all of our excess free cash flow back towards paying down debt until we get net leverage back inside of four times on a sustained level.

Okay, very helpful. Thank you. And just a quick follow-up.

um dna was a little elevated this quarter it seems it was due to some changes in accounting should we expect this to be sort of the new run rate for dna or is this a one-time change yeah i would say you're right i mean it is a little bit of accounting noise uh related to some purchase price adjustments on some of the legacy six flags parks as well as an accounting change uh related to the uh cedar side the legacy cedar side of the ledger uh i think at this point in time sans any significant change in the asset base, that that's sort of the normalized run rate for the go forward.

Great. Thank you very much.

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

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

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