Six Flags Entertainment Corp (FUN) 2008 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for standing by.

Welcome to the Cedar Fair second quarter earnings conference call.

During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode.

Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions.

(OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS).

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, August 5th, 2008.

I would now like the turn the conference over to Stacy Foley, Director of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead, ma'am.

Good afternoon and welcome to our second quarter earnings conference call.

I'm Stacy Foley, Cedar Fair's Director of Investor Relations.

Earlier today, we issued our second quarter earnings release.

A copy of that release can be obtained on our corporate web site at www.CedarFair.com or by contacting our investor relations offices at 419-627-2233.

On the call this afternoon are Dick Kinzel, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Peter Crage, our Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer.

On the call today we will discuss our performance through the first half of the year, attendance and revenue trends through this past weekend and provide our near-term financial outlook.

Before we begin, I need to caytion you that comments made during this call will include foward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.

These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such statements.

You may refer to filings by the company with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of these risks.

In addition, in accordance with regulation G, non-GAAP financial measures used on the conference call today are required to be reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

During today's call, we will make reference to adjusted EBITDA as defined in our earnings release.

The required reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA is in the earnings release, and is also available to investors on our web site via the conference call access page.

In compliance with SEC regulation FD, this web cast is being made available to the media and the general public as well as analysts and investors.

Because the webcast is open to all constituents and prior notification has been widely and unselectively disseminated, all content of the call will be considered fully disclosed.

Now let me turn the call over to Dick Kinzel.

Thank you for joining us on the call this afternoon.

Before we begin discussing the business, I'd like to first take a moment and address our recent unit market performance.

Our unit prices dropped about 15% in the last 60 days.

Of course, we are disappointed in this performance.

We understand that this is generally consistent with the decrease in valuations among other consumer drive, and high yield companies.

However we believe our business structure and model is unique and will withstand the short term pressure.

We operate 11 premium amusement parks, six outdoor water parks, one indoor and five hotels throughout the United States and Canada, providing a geographic diversity, a diversified asset base, high margins, and historically strong cash flows.

More importantly, we have consistently been able to perform in both up and down markets, through a consistent tight cost controls, value added guest pricing, new and exciting capital expenditures, a focused acquisition strategy, and close attention to our capital structure.

We have been able to create real value for our unitholders through various economic conditions.

This consistency does not seem to us to be fully recognized in value at this time, and is most likely due to higher gas price concerns and the general view of the health of the national economy.

Fundamentally nothing has changed in our management team remains focused on the four corner stones of safety, courtesy, cleanliness, service, all intertwined with integrity.

We are continually looking at ways to add value to our guest visit and to control our operating costs.

I believe our results through July show we have been successful in entertaining guests, even in this tough economic environment.

As long as we concentrate on what we know best, operating amusement parks and water parks along with resort hotels, we will increase our cash flows year-over-year in the markets will recognize this over the long term.

Peter will review the details through the second quarter in just a bit.

but first I would like to briefly comment on our performance to date.

Based on preliminary results, July results, through this past Sunday, or August 3, year-to-date consolidated revenues have increased 2% or $11 million.

This is on a comparable park basis, excluding Geauga Lake.

This increase reflects a 3% or 359,000 visit increase in attendance, slightly lower average in-park guest per capita spending, and a 2% decrease or $2 million in out of park revenues when compared to the same period a year ago.

Over the past five weeks, consolidated revenues on a comparable park and operating week basis were up 5% or approximately $14 million, largely due to a 6% increase in combined attendance or 379,000 visits and an $800,000 increase in out of park revenues.

Over the same period, average in-park guest per capita spending was down slightly, consistent with the trend we have experienced through the first six months of the year.

In general, we are pleased with the performance of our parks through this past weekend, given the difficult economic conditions across the country, especially here in the Midwest.

When we purchased the Paramount parks in June of 2006, we believed that the parks we were acquiring operated in stronger regional markets when compared with our existing parks.

This diversification has thus far proven to be beneficial to us as we continue to see strength in the Toronto market, along with the Washington DC, Charlotte and San Francisco markets over the past six months.

These stronger markets have helped to balance some of the early season softness we experienced from the Detroit, Cleveland and Toledo markets where some of our legacy parks operate.

Although we have not met all of our park level objectives to this point, we are pleased with the positive trends in attendance and revenues in most of our properties.

But the season is far from over, with almost 45% of our budget attendance to go, it is important we continue the positive momentum we experienced during the month of July into the peak vacation month of August, and the important fall season.

At this time, based on preliminary July results, we continue to anticipate generating full-year revenues of between $990 million to $1.02 billion, and full-year adjusted EBITDA of between 340 to $355 million.

Before I turn the call over to Peter for a more detailed review of our second quarter results, I would like to briefly discuss land we have recently decided to market near Toronto.

After a feasibility study of the 82-acre parcel of land located adjacent to Canada's Wonderland near Toronto we have concluded this land is not necessary for the future expansion of the park.

We believe this land is too valuable, and we have contracted with Conyers to market the 82 acres.

To date, we have received several inquiries and bids on this land for both cash purchases and joint venture opportunities.

While we do not have a specific date in mind, we do hope to make a final decision regarding this land over the next few months.

Any funds raised from this sale will be used to pay down our existing debt.

The sale of nonearning assets is another step in bringing our total debt outstanding down to a more suitable level.

I assure you that Peter and his finance team continue to look for ways to lower our cost of capital, and to monetize nonearning assets, while Jack Balthus and his operations team continue to look for ways to improve guest experience and increase our operating cash flows.

At this point I will turn the call over to Peter to discuss the second quarter numbers in more detail.

Thanks very much.

Let me again by emphasizing that virtually all of the revenues from our seasonal amusement parks, water parks, and other resort facilities are realized during a 130 to 140 day operating period, beginning in the second quarter, with the majority of revenues concentrated in the peak vacation months of July and August.

Only Knott's Berry Farm and Cast Away Bay are open year round, with both operating at their highest level of attendance in the third quarter.

Thus, I will caution you it is always risky to jump to any conclusions about full year results based on second quarter numbers alone.

As of last Sunday, August 3rd, approximately 45% of our annual attendance is yet to come.

Our current fiscal results are not directly comparable to the prior year as the current period includes an additional week due to the timing of the fiscal second quarter close.

In addition, current period results are impacted by the restructuring of our Geauga Lake property from a combined amusement park and water park to a standalone water park beginning with a 2008 season.

Since material differences in our statements of operations are largely due to the additional week in the current fiscal periods, as well as the impact of the Geauga Lake restructuring I will also discuss our operating results on a comparable period, June 29, 2008 to July 1, 2007 on a same park basis excluding Geauga Lake.

Let me begin by discussing our six month results.

The 2008 fiscal six month results span a 26 week period and include a total of 1,162 operating days compared with 25 weeks and 1,046 operating days for the fiscal six months in 2007.

Net revenues for the six months ended June 29, 2008 increased 11% to $336.6 million from $304 million in 2007.

This is broken down as follows.

$181.2 million dollars in admission revenue, $129.9 million in food merchandise, and games revenues.

$25.5 million in accommodations and other nonpark revenues.

The increase in revenues reflects a 12% or 838,000 visit increase in attendance, and a 1% or $0.23 decrease in average in park per capita spending to $40.45.

Out of park revenues increased 6% or $2.2 million to $40.5 million, compared with $38.3 million last year.

Comparing both 2008 and 2007, through the first full six months of the year, on a same park basis, total revenues would be down less than 1% on flat attendance, flat in park guest per capita spending, and a slight decrease in out of park revenues.

Operating costs and expenses for the fiscal six months increased 8% to $285 million from $264.8 million in 2007, due to the additional week in the current year.

These costs are broken down as follows: $33.2 million, cost of food, merchandise and games, $193 million in operating expenses and $58.8 million in SG&A.

After depreciation, amortization and a $3.3 million impairment charge related to the sale of fixed assets at Geauga Lake, the operating loss for the six month period decreased $8.8 million to $1.9 million in 2008, compared with $10.7 million in 2007.

Those of you who regularly follow our results know we believe adjusted EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and other noncash items, provides meaningful insight into our operating results, since we use it for budgeting, cash flow analysis, and measuring park level performance.

Because it is important to us, we make it a point of sharing it with investors.

For the fiscal six-month period, adjusted EBITDA increased $12.4 million or 31% to $52 million, compared with $39.6 million during the same period a year ago.

Comparing both years through a full six months and on a same-park basis, adjusted EBITDA would be down approximately 2 to $4 million between years due primarily to soft early season attendance in two of our largest parks, Cedar Point and Knott's Berry Farm.

Interest expense for the fiscal six months ended June 29th, 2008 decreased $2.5 million to $67.1 million.

This decrease is due to lower interest rates on our variable rate debt, our ability to fix an $300 million of term debt and at a favorable rate through an interest rate swap agreement entered into during the first quarter of 2008, and a lower average daily balance on our revolving credit facilities when compared with 2007.

This was somewhat offset by an additional week of interest expense.

The credit for taxes of $39.5 million was recorded in 2008 to account for publicly traded partnership taxes and the tax attributes of our corporate subsidiaries.

This compares with a credit for taxes of $31 million in the same fiscal six month period in 2007.

After interest expense, the credit for taxes and a small miscellaneous expense, our net loss for the fiscal six month period totaled $29.1 million or $0.53 per diluted limited partner unit compared to a net loss of $49.6 million, or $0.92 per unit a year ago.

Now on to our second quarter results.

In 2008, second fiscal quarter ended June 29th, while last year ended June 24th, 2007.

Each spanned a thirteen week period; however, due to the later timing of the fiscal calendar, the 2008 second quarter includes an additional 75 operating days when compared to 2007.

For the quarter, net revenues increased 8% to $296.2 million from $274 million from 2007.

This increase reflects 10% a 596,000 visit increase in attendance, and a 6% or $1.7 million increase in out-of-park revenues.

Slightly offsetting these increases were a 1% or $0.33 decrease in average in park guest per capita spending during the quarter.

Operating costs and expenses for the quarter increased 3% to $194.4 million, from $188.2 million in 2007, due primarily to the additional operating days in the period.

Offsetting this slightly was a reduction in second quarter operating costs, and our Geauga Lake property with its conversion to a stand alone water park.

After depreciation, amortization, and the $3.3 million impairment charge, operating income for the quarter totaled $54.5 million, up $14.3 million from the second quarter of 2007.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased 19% to $102.1 million from $86 million a year ago.

The $16.1 million increase was primarily attributable to the 75 additional operating days in the second quarter of 2008, along with our continued efforts to control operating costs.

On a comparable number of operating days, and a same-park basis as discussed above, adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2008 would be essentially flat with last year.

On a trailing 12 month basis, adjusted EBITDA increased 5% or $16.8 million to $352.9 million in 2008 from $336.1 million in 2007.

This increase was primarily due to the additional week in the current year period.

Although 45% of our 2008 operating season is still ahead of us, performance similar to the 2008 third and fourth quarters in 2008, would place our full year operating results within our 2008 guidance of 340 to $355 million of EBITDA.

Over the past five weeks, consolidated revenues on a comparable park and operating basis were up 5%, or approximately $14 million, largely due to a 6% increase in combined attendance or 379,000 visits and an $800,000 increase in out of park revenues.

Over the same five week period, average in park guest per capita spending was down slightly, consistent with the trend experienced in the first six months of the year.

Now I'd like to review the balance sheet.

At the end of the second quarter receivables and inventories were at normal seasonal levels and we have the necessary credit facilities in place to fund current liabilities, capital expenditures and operating expenses as required.

Partners equity totaled $213 million, and our total cash on hand was $32.9 million.

At June 29, 2008, total debt outstanding was $1.71 billion, a variable rate debt, $17.5 million.

of which is classified as current.

and $123.5 million.

which is borrowed under our revolving credit facility.

As of June 29, 2008, $1.6 billion of our outstanding variable rate long term debt has been converted to fixed rate debt, through use of several interest rate swap agreements and as a result, our current cost of debt is approximately 6.7%.

We are pleased to report we finished the quarter in sound financial condition in terms of both liquidity and cash flow.

Over the past several weeks, we have received questions from investors regarding our credit agreement and covenants.

Before we conclude our prepared remarks, I would like to briefly review these with you.

Our loan agreement includes the customary covenants to monitor performance.

These include the leverage ratio, which is total debt over a low-end four quarter EBITDA and the fixed charge coverage ratio, which is a rolling four quarter EBITDA over rolling four quarter fixed charges.

Our fixed charges are defined as cash payments for interest, taxes and capital expenditures.

The agreement also includes provisions restricting cash outflows, such as partnership distributions which are driven or limited by cumulative cash flow generated by the business.

There are two provisions that may limit or suspend our ability to pay distributions, distribution limitation provision essentially takes into consideration cumulative operating cash flows in or EBITDA, and cumulative cash flows out over the life of the debt or since mid 2006.

This provision also takes into account the seasonality of our business, essentially if our rolling 12 month EBITDA were to fall below the range of 325 to $330 million, this distribution limitation provision could potentially be triggered.

The other covenant is the distribution suspension provision.

This provision is computed similarly to the leverage ratio but has tighter parameters.

Based on the second quarter results, excluding the additional week, we are currently at 5.1 times debt to EBITDA, compared with the maximum 5.5 times, as permitted by the loan agreement.

This will decrease to 5.25 times in the fourth quarter of 2008, and further to 4.75 times in the fourth quarter of 2009.

There are no equity-related covenants.

We believe going forward, our cash flow from operations will be sufficient to meet working capital needs, debt service, planned capital expenditures and regular quarterly cash distributions for the foreseeable future.

And we are proactively managing the various cash flow components that influence the distribution and believe we are taking the appropriate actions to avoid triggering the more restrictive covenants.

As Dick mentioned earlier, we have contracted with Conyers to market the 82 acres of undeveloped land we currently own in Toronto, adjacent to and north of Canada's Wonderland.

We have already begun to work with several interested parties, and are hopeful we will be able to provide you with additional information in the near future.

Any proceeds from the land in Cleveland and Toronto will reduce term debt and further assist us in covenant compliance.

Our current term debt is attractively priced, and does not mature until February and August 2012.

We will continue to look for opportunities to take advantage of favorable market conditions, review noncore assets that may be able to be monetized and do what is necessary to optimize our capital structure for the long term.

At this point, I will conclude our prepared remarks and allow for any questions you may have.

Thank you, sir.

(OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS).

Our first question comes from the line of Kit Spring with Stifel Nicolaus, please go ahead.

Could you talk about how you think your weather patterns were this year?

Whether they had a favorable impact or would you consider the weather to have been more or less normal and maybe talk about how you are dealing with rising energy and food prices in your success with passing those costs through to consumers.

It looks like it is going pretty well so far.

Thanks, Kit.

Weather as you know is part of the business.

Last year we had very poor weather in August in some of our parks.

This year we experienced abnormally poor weather in the early part of the season, but hopefully at the end of year it will balance out and we figured in our budgets there's going to be so many bad weather days.

Some times there's more than others, but for example, Dorney Park, when there's a hurricane in Florida and the weather comes up the east coast that affects that park considerably.

All of the parks are different but we try to take some of that into consideration when we do the budgets and figures, not everyday is going be 72 and sunny.

As far as passing costs along, we certainly have had increases just like everyone in energy costs.

We have been able to pass along our in park services merchandise and foods, those prices have been increased throughout, and on Saturday, we began a process of raising the admissions prices at all of our parks, somewhere between $1 and $2, and that will be in full effect by the end of this week.

Great.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Kit.

Thank you, sir.

Our next question comes from the line of [Joe Lasky] with Wachovia.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, guys.

You mentioned in the press release new marketing programs, you will be introducing in the coming months.

Can you guys give more color on what you have planned and if this will be incremental to promotions that were originally planned for the year.

Joe, it is all in our business plan that we put together last year.

We certainly, we don't have anything planned special.

We don't feel that there's a need to do that at this time.

What you will be seeing in the next couple of weeks of course will be our push to try to sell the 2009 season passes.

We will begin that earlier this year than in previous years, but pretty much right now we are staying with the business plan and the plan we put together last year.

Thanks.

Another question here.

If there are potentially some properties for sale, IE Anheuser-Busch properties, at an attractive price, would there be any interest for you guys?

That's very skeptical or hypothetical.

We are always looking to grow the company and expand the company but our balance sheet is outlined and we are pretty heavy right now.

What I have said before is certainly if someone needed a management company to come in there and manage those parks for them, we certainly would welcome that opportunity and love to do something but our balance sheet is such right now, and under our partnership provisions where all available cash is paid in distributions we would have a very, very difficult time in trying to come up with the price for those parks.

They're very attractive parks and well run, they're beautiful properties, but I just don't think we are in a position at this time to take a hard look at them.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

And final question, here, given where you seen results through August 3rd, can you talk a little bit about your comfort level within the upper or lower half of revenue and EBITDA guidance range.

Sure.

As Pete said, we are about if you take a day-to-day comparison, we are about flat with last year.

We are going in to a strong fall season here in the Midwest.

However we feel that we have some introduction of some fall promotions at the other parks that will offset that.

Right now, as we are sitting here I feel comfortable we will be at the lower end of guidance on revenues and EBITDA.

Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Hayley Wolff of Rochdale Securities.

Hey, guys.

Hi.

A couple of question, first your last comment, on your day-to-day basis you are flat with last year, that's through the end of the second quarter; right.

That's correct.

Okay.

But I suspect if you are up the way you were up in July, that maybe you are tracking a little bit ahead.

A little bit ahead and we had a very strong fall last year.

It is a tough comp to go up against.

That's why as Dick said we feel comfortable with the guidance and the lower end of the guidance we made this year.

Can you like take a stab at what explains the acceleration in attendance in July?

Most of the parks were operating pretty much the way we figured going into the July with the exception of the Midwest here.

Particularly Cedar Point and Kings Island and Michigan's Adventure which were sort of impacted by the economy.

We did have some Geauga Lake business that came over to Cedar Point.

Group business that was redirected from Geauga Lake to Cedar Point.

That came through in the month of July.

The weather has been better.

So and hopefully those are the reasons, Hayley.

It started off very, very slow but it is starting to pick up.

Any concerns that in August, aside from weather?

What are your hotel bookings looking like if August so far.

Unfortunately with hotel you can only sell those out once, you can never make that up.

For the last few weeks, especially on the weekends, we have been 100% occupancy in all of our facilities, and during the week at least 85% to 95% full.

That pattern is going all the way out until about August the 20th or the 25th but we can't make up for what we did last year because at this time last year our hotels were sold out.

We do have a little bit ADR, but occupancy is just about the same, about the same because we have no more rooms to rent.

Okay.

But the August booking patterns are good against last year?

Yes.

Okay.

Any discounting going on on your front gate overall ticket pricing?

Nothing that we didn't have in our business plan going into the season.

There's an $8 discount on soft drink cans, Pepsi cans and Coke cans, depending on which park you are going to.

There's discounts on the internet.

Those are basically the discounts that we figured into our business model.

Okay.

Any information on the Geauga Lake sale?

We had a few interested parties on various parcels of land, three different parcels of land, hotel, 100 acres, another 400-acre parcel.

We continue to talk with them.

It is a soft market as you know.

We will talk with those three parties and discussions will continue to see if something makes sense.

One is an outright purchase.

Another one is a joint venture.

We will see what happens.

Last question on the property in Toronto, I guess the last number I heard is something like $600,000 an acre.

Is that still reasonable?

Comps in Canada right now are going from acreage anywhere from as low as 600,000 an acre to as high as $1 million an acre.

Wow.

That's good to always be low because if we can do better that's great.

Thanks a lot.

Great job, guys.

Thanks, Hayley.

Thank you, ma'am.

Our next question is from the line of Scott Hamann with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

Okay.

The could I get some color on the in park spending and maybe where some of that weakness is?

Sure, Scott.

The weakness is in merchandise and games and admissions per capita.

Food prices, we have been able to pass along very easily the increases there.

When people come to the park they have to eat, they're here for an average length of stay of six to nine hours, depending on the parks, they always have hopefully one meal and a couple of soft drinks during the day and some ice cream.

Our food per capita is where we thought it would be, strong in all of the parks.

However, during these weak economic times, people just will not play games, and they don't take home a souvenir with them.

Admissions is down.

Probably the biggest of all because of the volume of seasons passes we sold this year.

Okay.

Maybe a little more detail on what your expectations are and exactly what you're trying to accomplish with the recently announced corporate partnership program.

Sure.

It is basically what we are trying to do is to maximize the assets we have in the park without interfering with the guest comforts and guests being welcome in the park in their experience.

Basically we have tied in with the Kempton Group and they're out actively trying to look for sponsorships for us or promotional partners.

Okay.

And just in terms of maybe operating days for the third and fourth quarter, I know we kind of had a shift in the first half of the year, what's your expectation for what that is going to be kind of maybe year-over-year for the third quarter?

Sure.

We are -- go ahead.

Pete can talk about the actual days, from an operational standpoint, Labor Day is on the first of September this year is here in Ohio or at least in this area, schools are going back after Labor Day for the first time in a long time.

That certainly should help us the last week in September.

On a, but we will lose about six days from last year, because I believe Labor Day last year was on the 5th or 6th.

We will lose those days but they were soft days.

That's operating day.

On a fiscal basis.

We lose 118 at the third quarter so we have comparable periods to 2007.

That answers your question.

Yes.

Through the third quarter we will be comparable.

Now if you fast forward that through the end of the year, we expect to have about 14 additional operating days for the entire year when you compare '07 to '08.

That is due to variations in the calendar.

Okay.

Maybe just finally talk about where you are with the Great America park and are there negotiations on going with those parties out there, and kind of where do we stand right now.

Sure.

The same as we left it on the last conference call.

The 49ers know what our requirements are.

They're weighing what we need so.

So pretty much, it is in their -- it is their decision to make.

They're weighing how valuable the property is and the best use of the property.

We have not heard back from them for quite a while.

Is there any time line they're operating on?

Well, you know, they this had established a tentative time line of having a stadium built for the 2012 season, but they're somewhat delayed not only are respect to their dealings with us but I understand there are some issues they have to deal with in their environmental impact report that may delay them six months to a year.

We're not familiar with the working of their work, but I understand they're delayed somewhat for any number of reasons.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Our next question comes from the line of Justin Harrison with Ramsey Asset Management.

Please go ahead.

Good afternoon.

Peter I have got an early in your comments, you talked about the adjusting for that extra week.

Was that then for six months or trailing 12 months?

I wasn't clear.

You talked about revenue and EBITDA numbers.

Trailing 12 months and did first six months.

On a fiscal comparative basis.

Okay.

Then just remind me those numbers again on the revenue and EBITDA.

Okay.

For the six months really.

Revenue, revenue for the first six months this year, $336.6 last year, 404 million, and then trailing 12 months, which is really 53 weeks compared to 52, 1 million -- 1.02 billion versus 966 million.

Okay.

EBITDA, EBITDA for the six months period ended in '08, 52 million versus 39.6 million then trailing 12 months $352.8 million versus 336 million.

But.

Those also in an attachment to our press release this morning.

Right but that factors in the extra week week.

I thought you talked ahead of that.

Right.

For the trailing 12, for the six month period, we believe that, you no as you might expect, peak season identifying EBITDA, we identified an estimate order of magnitude of flow through.

We believed that EBITDA would be 2 to $4 million behind on a comparable operating day basis when you compare the six months per.

Is that your question.

It does.

That's exactly what I was looking for.

Okay.

Picked up a little bit in July which is helpful to us.

And five week period then started basically the start of Q3.

Yes.

Got you.

Thanks, Peter.

Thank you, sir.

(OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS).

we do have a follow up question from the line of Hayley Wolff.

Please go ahead.

One question you mentioned season passes as taking down some of the admission per cap.

Can you give us the ultimate score card and what season sales pass look like for the season and maybe some color on utilization?

Our seasons pass sales are up, are up over last year considerably especially we are going to do some new programs at the legacy parks that we modeled after the paramount parks and we went back the renewed some of the marks they had there prior to the acquisition.

Consequently that raised the level of seasons pass sales at both the legacy parks and the PPI parks.

So far that's worked out very well for us, seasons pass visits at all of the parks are up and consequently that hurts our admissions per capita but adds revenue the bottom line.

Flavor were you looking for.

A sense of what utilization looking like and are you talking up considerably?

Is that a 10% number, units, dollars?

We can't break it down but it is up considerably especially at the Canadian spark cedar point is doing very well.

We don't carve out specific increases season passes but as mentioned they're up considerably even with the changes we made.

Visitation utilization depends on the park.

Generally people are take advantage of the value but there are a few parks where visitation isn't as high as other parks but if you look at it on a park by park basis as well.

Okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

Our next question is a follow up question from the line of Scott Hamann.

Please go ahead.

In some of the survey wark that you guys doing around the parks have you been able to discern any trends that customers are in fact kind of staying closer to home and doing the regional amusement park opposed to longer trips?

Scott, we haven't, we will have a real good feel for that at the end of the season when we what do is we compare all of the different parks, in park surveys, match them one on one.

We certainly know just by being in the parks we certainly are affected by Detroit being 2 to 2.5 hours away with the economic conditions there.

I just really can't comment until we really see the results as they come in and we compare them to the other parks.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we would like to give participants a final opportunity to ask any questions.

(OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS).

At this time we are no further questions.

I would like to turn the call back to Stacy Foley for any closing remarks.

At this point if there are no further question, I would like to thank everyone for joining us today.

Should you have any follow up questions feel free to contact me at 419-627-2227 and we look forward to speaking with you again in early November to discuss our third quarter results.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Cedar Fair second quarter earnings conference call.

This conference will be available for replay after 4:00 p.m.

eastern standard time today through August 19th at midnight.

If you would like to listen to a replay of today's conference, please dial 303-590-3030 or 1-800-406-7325 and enter pass code 389-7607.

Once again if you would like to listen to a replay of today's conference.

Call 303-590-3030 or 1 had-800-406-7325 and enter pass code 3897607.

Thank you for your participation.

You may now disconnect.

Have a pleasant day.