Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us on Six Flags Entertainment's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Tom Hennessy, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to point everyone to our third quarter 2026 earnings release and supplemental presentation, which were released this morning. Both can be found in the investor section of the Six Flags website at www.sixflags.com. Some of our comments will be forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward looking statements, which are usually identified by the use of words such as will, Expect, Should, or other similar phrases are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. We refer you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risk that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. During the call, we will discuss our non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available in our third quarter 2026 earnings release and our supplemental information. One additional point on the basis of comparisons made in our materials issued today and on this call, we will refer to our results on a same park basis, which excludes the seven parks sold on April 6th, 2026 and the park in Bowie, Maryland that closed after the 2025 season from all periods presented. Unless we say otherwise, year over year comparisons today are on that same park basis. Joining me today are John Reilly, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ash Walia, Chief Financial Officer, who will take you through our prepared remarks. We will then open the call to questions. With that, I will turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. Before we discuss the quarter, let me start by acknowledging recent events. On October 12th, Hassan Karim tragically lost his life while visiting Six Flags over Georgia. On behalf of everyone at Six Flags, I extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends. Our thoughts are also with those who were injured and everyone affected, including our team members. This tragic incident together with our decision to retire the X2 roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain has raised understandable questions. Those questions deserve clear answers. Nothing is more important to this company or to me than the safety of our guests and of our team members. Safety is the most fundamental commitment we make. And to that end, every ride we operate is inspected daily before opening and maintain to comply with our internal and regulatory requirements so that we meet or exceed industry safety guidelines. Here is what we know today and what we are doing. First, local authorities and the ride manufacturer are investigating what happened in Georgia. We are assisting fully in conducting our own internal review. We cannot comment further until that investigation is complete. Second, We have launched a comprehensive safety review of our entire ride portfolio, led by Mark Pauls, our Chief Operating Officer, supported and verified by independent third-party engineering and inspection specialists. We will provide further updates as appropriate. Confidence isn't restored with a statement. It is earned through action, and our leadership team is committed to earning it. Every guest and team member deserves to feel safe in our parks, and that is the standard we hold ourselves to at every park, every day. Now, let me turn to the business through three lenses, our team, our strategy, and the results we are delivering. Having spent most of my career leading and operating many parks and resorts across many countries, when I got the opportunity to come to Six Flags late last year, After 11 months, This company is further along than it was a year ago, and the numbers show it. Through nine months, adjusted EBITDA is up nearly 11%. Margin is up about 200 basis points, and free cash flow has improved by about $300 million. I am more convinced now than ever of this company's potential. On our last call, we shared our operating priorities with you. With the season now mostly behind us, We have a fuller picture of how our parks are performing and where the opportunities lie. We are executing a strategy that we believe will drive this company to reach its potential. And while it's still early, we are already seeing the results that tell us this strategy is working and this team is headed in the right direction. It all starts with the brand and our brand research consistently comes back strong. Awareness of Six Flags is 96% and in nearly every market where we operate we are the number one name in our category. The research also tells us that our standalone park brands together with some attribution to the Six Flags name are stronger together than either one alone. Great brands still need great operators. We put experienced park presidents back in charge of our largest parks with clear ownership of the guest experience, labor, ride up time, and the park level P&L. We are bringing back decision-making authority in an entrepreneurial spirit to the parks. I am confident from my years in this business that it will pay off. Centrally, we have the right leaders to scale our resources, build centers of excellence, and support the parks as they grow. Mark Pauls, who joined as Chief Operating Officer in July, has visited most of our parks and is leading a park-by-park review of uptime, maintenance, staffing, and operating procedures. Amy Martin Ziegenfuss, our Chief Marketing Officer, is sharpening how we win and keep guests coming back. Chris Myring, our SVP Commercial, is leading our pricing and revenue management work to optimize our opportunities. And Ash has brought the investment and cost discipline he will walk you through shortly. Our teams in the parks and at our park support center know how to lead through good times and challenging ones. Progress will not always be a straight line, but we're building this team the right way. Doing right by our guests and team members and delivering value for shareholders are not competing goals. We will do both. Let me turn from who we are to what we are doing. It starts with the four priorities we laid out on our last call. Park Level Accountability A Better Guest Experience Stronger Commercial Act Capabilities Discipline Capital Allocation We have made steady progress getting the basics right. Building on them is the next phase and that is where our strategy comes in. Our ambition is to build the premier regional parks entertainment platform. Connected networks of parks that deliver experiences guests love to share. and a loyal recurring member and past holder base that creates sustainable value for our shareholders. We are focused on five key elements that drive it and I'll give you a proof point for each. First, build fun experiences that guests love, talk about and share. It starts with rides that are safe and run when guests expect them. Ride availability is the biggest driver of how guests feel about their day, and it's improving. In the third quarter, ride uptime was 90.3%, up from 89.4% last year. Guests are also riding more, with rides per guest up nearly 3%. Around the rides, we are improving attractions, events, comfort, and service, because happy guests return and bring new ones. More of our growth spending is going exactly there. Two, expand the passholder network and base. The base is growing. At the end of September, our active pace was up about 7% versus the same date last year. And passholders and members made up about 61% of our attendance in the quarter. Our regional passes and memberships are doing what we built them to do. Guests are traveling further and expanding our catchment areas, visiting more than one park. Cross-park visits are running about five times last year's level. That is the network working, and we are just getting started. Brands that have never been available together on one pass, like the incomparable combination of Knott's Berry Farm and Six Flags of Magic Mountain in greater Los Angeles, are now available together in the same regional markets. We see an opportunity to lean in based on our success this year, including with paid marketing support. Three, optimize the portfolio through a disciplined investment strategy. Our parks did not all play the same role or contribute to growth at the same level. So we do not invest in them in the same way. Every park has a plan built around its own market and its own growth opportunity. Where a park is strong, we build on it. Where there is more room to grow, we start by getting the fundamentals right. We put our capital to its best and highest use, and safety and maintenance come first. We carry more debt than we want, and bringing it down is a priority. Optimizing the portfolio is how we will get there. We are actively reviewing our parks and real estate, including potential sales of non-core assets to unlock value, reduce debt, and enhance liquidity. That also keeps us investing in the parks that drive our business. The seven non-core parks we sold this year show how we think about it. We act when the value is right. Every dollar has to help us get there as we build for our future. Four, execute with excellence. That means marketing that finds the right guests at the right time, pricing that reflects the value we provide, and operations that run with consistency from park to park. We are adding new capabilities behind strengthening our marketing and pricing and that work is well underway. Over time, our guests will see more personal, better targeted messaging and a stronger connection with us. It also opens up new ways to sell. Five, build a performance culture. Our park leaders own their results. They make decisions closest to the guests and they carry the accountability that comes with it. We are also making this company faster and simpler. Centrally, some decisions took longer than they should have with too many layers between the people closest to the guests and the people making the call. Consolidating our corporate offices is one example. Fewer layers means faster decisions, more accountability, and more local ownership. Shared services give the parks the strength of scale they could never build alone. We are seeing early results. Taken all together, these five strategic pillars are intended to drive the outcomes that matter. Recurring revenue, a growing and more loyal passholder base, higher guest lifetime value, margin expansion, stronger free cash flow, and lower leverage. Our long-term goals are adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30s, and net leverage of about four times. So how are we doing? The evidence is early, but is moving in the right direction. Start with a quarter. Third quarter is our biggest of the year, but it was not the easiest. The later Labor Day gave us more operating days, but a less favorable July 4th calendar and wildfire smoke at a handful of parks took much of that back. Even so, on a same park basis, Net revenues grew 1.4% to $1.17 billion. Adjusted EBITDA grew 1.1% to $493 million. And we held our margin at 42%. Per capita spending rose and paid attendance grew as we issued fewer complimentary tickets. Progress rarely shows up in a straight line. And the start of the fourth quarter tested us. October is the most important month of the quarter, and it was softer than we planned. Weather hit several of our biggest early October weekends and events, and the ride closures that followed the incident in Georgia landed in the same weeks. Through nine months, we've seen real proof points that our strategy is taking hold, including an increased pass space, materially higher cross-park visitation fueled by our Gold Pass and the new brand combinations available in each region, and increase in adjusted EBITDA and margin expansion. That is momentum that reinforces confidence we're on the right track and we intend to build on it. That is our strategy and where we're headed and we're energized by what's ahead. Ash will take you through the financial details, including our outlook for the fourth quarter. I'll be back at the end with some closing comments. With that, I'll hand the call over to Ash.

Thank you, John. and good morning everyone. Before I walk through the numbers, I want to give you three takeaways up front because they frame everything else I will say this morning. First, we delivered a solid third quarter. In our largest and most important quarter of the year, on a same part basis, we grew both revenue and adjusted EBITDA and held our margin at 42%, even with the less favorable July 4th calendar and with weather and Wildfire Smoke weighing on several of our parks during peak season. Second, our year-to-date results show improving profitability and cash flow versus prior year. Through the first nine months on the same park basis, adjusted EBITDA is up about 11% and our margin has expanded by about 200 basis points. As a result, for the nine months, our cash flow from operations less capex is $257 million, a $300 million improvement from the same period last year. Third, we have the balance sheet flexibility to meet our commitments and continue investing in the business. That takes into account our fourth quarter outlook and the seasonality of our business through the winter and early spring when liquidity is at its lowest. We ended the quarter with more than $1 billion of liquidity and improvement of $298 million versus this time last year with nothing drawn on our revolver. We believe that gives us ample capacity to meet our obligations, including to fund the full six flags over Georgia purchase if needed in January. Now, let me walk through the details, starting with our reported results. Third quarter net revenues were $1.17 billion. Net loss was $366 million, or $3.59 per diluted share, which includes non-cash impairment charge of $688 million related to goodwill, trade names, and long-lived assets. The details will be included in our quarterly 10Q filing. The charges do not affect our cash position and are excluded from our same part adjusted EBITDA. Unless otherwise noted, The majority of my comments from here on will be on a same park basis, which excludes the parks we sold during the second quarter and our Bowie Park that closed after the 2025 season. Please keep that in mind as a reference year over year changes throughout my remarks. Further, I'd point out that our earnings release also has the reported results and a reconciliation to the same park results. as well as a detail of quarterly historical same park results and drivers to assist you in your modeling. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $493.2 million up $5.4 million or 1.1% as we held our margin at 42% down 13 basis points versus last year. The quality of our attendance improved as we issued fewer complimentary tickets. Total attendance was 18.2 million, essentially flat with last year. The later Labor Day helped the quarter while weather in the Northeast and Midwest plus wildfire spoke at several parks weighed on peak weeks during the quarter. Our guests also spent more per visit. Per capita spending rose about 1.3% to $60.51 with increases in both admissions and in-park spending. Key drivers included higher merchandise spending and spending on premium offerings such as Fastlane. On the cost side, our savings kept pace with inflation, which is what protected our margin. In the third quarter, we delivered about $13 million of savings, mainly from full-time seasonal labor, park operating costs, and procurement. That fully offset about $13 million of cost pressures from wages, insurance, and other inflation. We did this while operating 54 more days than last year, mainly from the shift in Labor Day. Zooming out to the first nine months, the improvement in our profitability and margin is clear. Revenue grew about $62 million. Adjusted EBITDA also grew about $62 million, or 11% to $639.5 million. Essentially, every dollar of our revenue growth reached the bottom line. and a margin expanded about 200 basis points from 26.3% to 28.3%. On a trailing 12 month basis, adjusted EBITDA rose to $806 million. Cost savings have been a major driver. Year to date, we have delivered about $63 million of gross savings or about $36 million net of cost pressures. And we are on track for 70 to $80 million of gross savings for the full year or 36 to $46 million net. These savings are not a one-time benefit. They are a part of how we run the business every day. And we are building a pipeline of savings for the years ahead so that more of the revenue growth reaches the bottom line. That keeps us on path to achieve adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid 30s over time. Just as important, our earnings are converting into cashflow on a reported basis Through the first nine months, operating cash flow was $498 million, up $133 million from last year, reflecting stronger business performance at the remaining parks and favorable working capital. Capital spending was $241 million compared to $408 million last year, and free cash flow was $257 million. This marks an improvement in free cash flow of about $300 million through the first nine months compared to last year. These figures are as reported, so last year and the first months of this year include the parks we no longer operate. The reduction in capex reflects a more rigorous approach to capital allocation, not a change in our growth strategy. After funding infrastructure, including maintenance, every project now competes for funding on its expected return on invested capital, and we have resequenced our pipeline so that the highest return investments come first. The projects we have moved haven't been abandoned. They remain in our long range plan and will be re-evaluated against the same return thresholds in future years. As you will observe when you visit our parks, a growing share of our growth capital is going towards guest experience investments, which we believe offer attractive returns and support our strategy to rebuild attendance. We don't expect the sequencing to change our path to adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30s over time. On the contrary, our sharpened focus around capital allocation strengthens free cash flow and liquidity. The cash generation has strengthened our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $1.06 billion of liquidity, up $223 million from $837 billion at the end of second quarter. That is comprised of $268 million of cash and revolver available. This represents an improvement of $298 million in our liquidity compared to the same time last year. We are also delevering. We have reduced debt by $275 million this year. Net debt fell by about $200 million in the quarter to approximately $4.7 billion. And the net leverage improved to 5.8 times from 6.1 times based on a trailing 12-month same-park adjusted EBITDA. About 70% of our debt is fixed rate, and we have no immediate maturities. We remain focused on reducing net leverage, targeting a goal of about four times. We expect any proceeds from asset sales will go to paying down debt. On insurance, the higher cost through the third quarter reflects the structure of our insurance programs. are claims experience and our actuarial estimate of claims that have occurred but not yet been reported. All related to the period before the incident in October. We self-insure claims up to a certain retention level. Beyond that, we have $100 million of comprehensive general liability coverage applies above that. Based on that coverage and what we know today, we do not expect any claim payments to have a material impact on our liquidity. that brings me to the six flags over Georgia we own about a third of the partnership units and in January we may buy the remaining units under the end of term option we exercised in December 2024. the amount payable should every partner choose to be paid out would be approximately 370 million dollars set up by a formula in the partnership agreement however we are in active dialogue with the unit holders and some partners may elect to roll over their units and defer the payment, which would reduce our cash requirements. We will update you when we have more information on any such rollover. Today, we pay about $26 million a year in distributions to the Georgia partners. Once we own their units, those distributions end. At the current rates, interest on the revolver borrowing would be about $21 million a year, while giving us the full ownership of the park. Our priority is to reduce leverage. As we optimize the portfolio, proceeds from the asset sales that don't fit our strategy will be directed primarily to paying down debt. Our future planning shows adequate liquidity through next year's seasonal low point without any incremental debt except for revolver borrowings under our credit facility. Turning to the fourth quarter, as John mentioned, October was softer than we planned. with attendance down 9% versus last year. About half of that came from unfavorable weather on several of our most important weekends earlier in the month, including from Hurricane Isis and the other half from the impact of the incident at Six Flags Over Georgia and the related right closures. Encouragingly, in the last week of October, we saw year over year growth, excluding directly impacted parks. Last year's fourth quarter, Same park adjusted EBITDA was $166.9 million and we now expect to generate approximately $140 to $150 million in the fourth quarter this year. The vast majority of the difference compared to the year ago period reflects the month of October. While we are working hard to limit this impact, I think it's important to put into perspective as the difference only represents about 3% of our trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA. And even with the fourth quarter headwinds, we are expecting the same park adjusted EBITDA to grow for the full year compared with last year. October typically brings in 60 to 65% of our fourth quarter revenue, leaving the remainder to be earned in November and December. We expect about 60 more operating days in the quarter compared to last year, mainly from the holiday in park events. For modeling purposes, those holiday operating days draw lower attendance than operating days in October. However, they are very accretive days from a cash flow perspective. Our parks remain open throughout October, and for the full year, we expect approximately 4,868 operating days, 46 more than 2025. To be clear, we see this shortfall as temporary in nature. It reflects events specific to this October, not a change in the underlining demand for our parks or in the long-term earning power of the business. We are already responding through marketing, pricing and product offers and nothing we saw in October changed our operating plan for 2027 or our long-term ambitions to drive an expansion in margins. To sum up, I want to reiterate the three messages I started with. First, The third quarter was a good quarter. We grew revenue and adjusted EBITDA, held our margin at 42%, grew paid attendance, and increased per capita spending despite challenging weather in several of our key markets. Second, our year-to-date results show a stronger business compared to last year. Adjusted EBITDA is up by 11%, our margin is up by about 200 basis points, We have generated $257 million of free cash flow, and we are on track for $70 to $80 million of gross cost savings this year, and we expect to grow the same park adjusted EBITDA for the full year. Third, we have ample liquidity to buy the remaining units of Georgia Partnership. We ended the quarter with $1.06 billion of liquidity. We expect to end the year with sufficient liquidity to fund the payment in full if needed. With that, I'll turn it back to John for closing comments.

Thanks, Ash. What gives me confidence is what I see across our parks. Roughly 95,000 full-time and seasonal team members who show up every day with passion to create fun, thrills, and lifetime memories for our guests. We know confidence is earned, and we intend to keep earning it quarter by quarter. Thank you to our teams and thank you for your support. With that operator, please open the lines for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from the line of Steve Vyginski with Stifle. Steve, your line is open.

Yeah, hey guys, good morning. So John or Ash, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but to me it sounds like you're more open to potentially selling or shutting down additional parks versus where your commentary was, let's call it three months ago. Am I thinking about that the right way? And if I am, wondering what made you change your mind or your thought process versus just a couple months ago? And if Yeah, we think about lowering your park base. I mean, do you guys, you know, do you guys actually have a number in mind that you'd want to get to, meaning 34 parks goes down to, you know, X or Y or, you know, what that number could look like? Thanks.

Hey, Steve, it's John. I'll take that. So when we commented on this at the last call, the response was that we didn't have anything underway for the operating season. and that really was a question of the timing and where we were in the season and a real focus on execution and on delivering for our expanded past base and continuing to push the expansion of our past and membership base. We're happy with that result. That said, we do believe there's opportunity for further portfolio optimization and now that the bulk of the season has passed, those discussions are underway. and you know we're not going to quantify that in terms of a number of parks what I can tell you is we've done a lot of work to to strategize categorize our parks in terms of values to our strategies going forward things like expanding the pass space and the regional membership which parks are in the most critical networks we're also looking at accretion or improvement to our leverage ratio where would that where would that have the biggest impact so It's one of many measures we're taking to strengthen the company. We'll give you more specifics as we go forward.

Okay, gotcha. Thanks, John. And then if we think about the long-term goal of getting margins into the mid-30s, wondering what long-term maybe means to you, just trying to understand how long that might take and then maybe also help us think about some of the drivers of what's going to improve that margin improvement going forward.

Yeah, Steve, thanks. So we're pleased with our progress thus far this year. We have some green shoots, and we have about 200 basis points in improvement. The way we think about that, we're not going to guide today in terms of a year target. As we go forward, we'll try to provide more color on these. But what I would say is we expect we can get about halfway there on cost work. I mean, Ash mentioned in his earlier comments that we had around $70 million in cost savings offset by some inflation and other factors. We're pleased with our early progress, and we're building an organization that can more reliably deliver that every year, I think, as he alluded to. So, but the way we see it is we can get about halfway there on cost base and then the improvement in the revenue, you know, this business scales up very well. The improvement in the revenue should get us the rest of the way there.

Okay, thanks, John. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of David Katz with Jefferies. David, your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to just get your latest thoughts on the increasing pass base, right? Presumably with single day visitation moving down. How do you look at the balance or the equilibrium between those and the dynamics that it implies for per caps, for visibility, obviously, all of the different parts to it. Obviously, we've seen that dynamic elsewhere in our coverage and what it implies for the long term. So I'd love some little more depth of thoughts on that. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, David. This is John. I'll take that. So in terms of the sort of increase in pass and membership base, and potential impact on share of total tickets. This is the way we look at it. First, we're here to maximize total revenue. And so we may, as we trade some people up, lower the per visit per cap, but we're happy to take the extra visits and the higher total revenue, increasing the total value per guest. We're working on this in two different ways and we've strengthened our marketing and our commercial engines within the company. The structure of the products, the trade-up, which we're seeing tremendous results, the regional visitation is something that our commercial team is driving deliberately along with the marketing team and we're seeing results. But what I will say is our marketing team has also made a lot of progress in the last months on our marketing technology infrastructure that's going to allow us to market in a more targeted way, a more personal way with personas and different guests that we haven't messaged to before. So we think we can do both. Over time, we think we can grow single day. And over time, we can grow pass through the capabilities that we're building in marketing. And we have traded a few points from single day tickets, about three points to pass in membership. but we feel good about the trade-off overall because it's growing total revenue and we feel good that our marketing commercial engines are gonna be able to manage this as we go forward.

And as my follow-up, this may be for Ash, there's been such a dynamic debate over CapEx levels across the company, obviously that predates you all. How do you feel about the sustainability of your maintenance CapEx levels so far? And how do we think about a total CapEx budget from a long-term perspective? I can recall us modeling like a nine, 10% level. Is that what you think is required in this business on an ongoing basis? Thanks.

Yeah, you know, thank you. You know, one of the things that I shared in my prepared remarks was our very rigorous approach to capital allocation. So we have multiple projects that we look and evaluate and we try to prioritize them based on the return that they're going to deliver to us. And then what I said is that all the projects that are not passing that hurdle are put back into the pipeline to compete in the next year. When I look at capex, the capex is in two components. One is our growth capex and the other one is our infrastructure capex. The infrastructure capex includes things like maintenance, safety, security. That's part of the infrastructure piece. That usually ranges between 20% to 30% of our total capex. It depends on timing. It also depends on the mix of the growth capex. And we continue to look at it. We continue to refine on it. But right now, where we are and how we see The levels that we have, we are pleased with the levels of capital that we are able to invest in the business between growth and between infrastructure.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Arpine Kocharian with UBS. Your line is open.

Hi, thank you so much for taking my question. And I apologize, I'm hopping between calls today, so it's very possible you've already addressed this. But I was hoping you could dissect the past program trends a little bit more. It seems like there are some, there were some definitional changes in the press release. You're now citing past member sales plus, past sales plus member sales, specifically that 2.5% increase you are seeing right now. in past program plus members. How has that paced through October? I guess what I'm really trying to get to is how much of the Georgia incident might have impacted your past sales in October and kind of trying to get to read-throughs for 2027 impact from this sort of foregone past sales, if you want to call it that way.

Hi, RP. This is John. I'll take that. So in our PASS program, there is in our PASS base, it's a PASS and membership base, and it's an active base at any moment in time during the year. And it fluctuates based on people moving in and out of membership or potentially certain passes expiring. So we added membership to about eight parks that had never had membership at the beginning of the summer. and now we have a higher membership base. So that is one impact. The second thing that we did is we intentionally launched the 2027 pass program later than we did in last year. And that was to avoid what we call skip level behavior where people are getting a year and a half of a pass on a one season purchase. So the combination of membership and an intentional delay in the launch in the summer by a couple of weeks has lowered the base of 2027 sales as we go in. We expect that to be even maybe slightly up as we get to the new year in terms of the pass and membership base. So that's the dynamic there and there's an intentional skip level delay so that we can yield more out of those passes going forward. As far as Georgia and trying to model any Any impacts from there? Well, first, our main focus here is on the investigation and on safety, of course. But what I would say, if you want to talk about the business performance with Georgia, is that if you go back to what we commented on in the script, These are resilient brands, strong brands, and all of our research says both the Six Flags brands and the Park brands are strong. We've gone back and studied incidents in the industry, and it's very difficult to make a prediction. But as far as the performance in Georgia, these things are typically not a matter of years and more a matter of months as we do all the right things. So I don't have anything to quantify that for you. What I can say is the result, any impact from that seems to be limited to Georgia and potentially Magic Mountain because we have the X2 matter as well. And then some isolated impacts on the parks that have temporary closures due to their rides out of commission for a period of time right now. But we don't see anything beyond that. And as we move forward, we'll share with you.

That's very, very helpful. Thank you for that. And then just a quick follow up, you know, and thank you for clarifying the liquidity situation in your release. I think that's very helpful. But I was wondering if you could talk or maybe walk us through a bit more on both Georgia payment as well as, and this is going to be a lot more forward looking than you're probably ready to look right now, but sort of your 2028, 2029 maturities given sort of higher cost of capital today. But mostly I'm interested in how you're thinking about the balance sheet more medium term beyond just the next quarter. But of course, as we think about next quarter and the Georgia payment, that's probably the more relevant question near term.

Yeah, so thank you. This is Ash, and I'll take that question. So we've internally modeled our liquidity scenario Knowing the variables that we know today and assuming that we will have to fund Georgia fully, based on that analysis and based on knowing what the Q1 2026 burn was, we believe we have sufficient liquidity available to us to continue to invest in the business and operate the business. That analysis that I talked about, scenario analysis that we prepared, does not include any benefits from what John talked about on portfolio optimization, so that will be incremental. We also have, if needed, we also have the level of looking at a growth capex and, you know, making a refinement on the timing. So we have some flexibility there, if needed again. And then obviously the fact is that we are in active discussion with the partners and we'll share in terms of what the outcome is and how many partners might want to stay and roll over because that will help reducing our cash flow. That is not included in the analysis. The analysis includes that Everything is fully funded and we have sufficient liquidity to run the business both from investment perspective and operations.

That is very, very helpful. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from the line of James Hardeman with Citi. James, your line is open.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Obviously, way too early to have guidance with respect to 2027. I don't know if you will ever get guidance on 2027, but I'm sort of going fishing here a little bit. But maybe anything that you feel like you have visibility on as we look to 2027, whether it's attendance or admissions pricing, in-park pricing, labor costs, Weather is always going to be a big swing factor. I don't know if you feel like on balance, 2026 was a bad weather year that creates an easier comparison. Obviously, you've had some success cutting costs, sort of how we should think about sort of incremental run rate savings into 2027. Again, I'm sort of fishing here, but anything you can give us to help us I think through 2027 would be great.

So this is Ash, and I can start off with the cost piece first. And in terms of the business principle that we've been using from a cost perspective is that cost savings should be such that they offset inflationary pressures and then deliver some to the bottom line. A lot of work has gone within the organization. to be able to trace, track, and report cost savings and also trace, track, and report on the inflationary pressures and the investments we want to make into the business such that the cost savings deliver and slow down after offsetting inflation to the bottom line. And that will be the going in approach. While we do this, it's not a one-time effort. It's ongoing. Every cost that comes on the table, we turn it and we try to look for opportunities in terms of how we can improve those costs. We have a view in terms of what the future pipeline would look like, and we are working on that pipeline for 2027 and beyond.

I'll just maybe add, James, in terms of the weather. I mean, we don't view it as a positive weather year. We mentioned the wildfire impacts, other things we had during the summer. But we also don't want to dwell on that because we believe we have enough opportunities with the strategies and priorities we've laid out to move the needle significantly on our own. And so the one thing I might add to Ash and to add a little bit to our first discussion around the shift in pass and membership and per caps, we do have we do have we have identified some great opportunities for next year, too, in terms of fast lane. It's a big business for us. and we have some pricing opportunities there. We've taken pricing opportunities and reconstituted our dining plans, which are a significant business for us going into next year. So I won't go into all the details, but we are working on opportunities to grow the business and weather for us is an uncontrollable, so we'll control the controllables.

Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe as a follow up to Steve's question up top about Portfolio Optimization. I guess if we go back to the last year's sale, or I guess this year's sale, sorry, the EPR sale, obviously you were able to generate cash, but you lost a certain amount of EBITDA generation. And so the net impact on leverage was pretty minimal. But I think if I'm hearing what you're saying correctly, maybe you think that the leverage can be meaningful as a result of continued portfolio optimization from here. Again, similar to how Steve laid it out. I don't know if I'm reading too much into sort of what you've said so far, or is there an opportunity to sort of assist the balance sheet and the leverage as a result of continued optimization. Thanks.

So we look at this two ways, James. And you look at the silver parks that we sold earlier this year. Yes, they did help us with the cash. And the leverage ratio, although it didn't necessarily lower our leverage ratio, we sold some smaller parks that weren't a major focus for us. at a multiple that was similar to where the portfolio was trading. So that gives us strategic focus from the management team, resources, capital allocation to redirect to the bigger parks. That's an important step for us, and we're open to similar sales like that going forward. But secondly, because in some smaller parks in the portfolio, we were able to get approximately a similar multiple, If you look at all the parks in our portfolio, they wouldn't all sell at the same multiple. So there's an opportunity to do more potentially on the leverage ratio. But again, this is something we're exploring. We don't have anything to announce today.

And if I may, just add to what John just said, you know, portfolio optimization is one lever. The other thing we have to also keep in mind that we are going to focus on continuing to grow our attendance in the business. and hold the middle of the P&L between cost savings and inflationary pressures that we see so that the EBITDA also improves. That will also help drive an improvement in leverage. So it's multiple levers that we have that we'll have to deploy simultaneously.

Got it. Thank you both.

Your next question comes from the line of Brant Montour with Barclays. Brandt, your line is open.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great. So the first question is circling back on the commentary on October. I was hoping you could be a little bit more specific when you said that you saw visitation growth in the last week of October X directly impacted parks. When you say directly impacted parks, are those Georgia and Magic Mountain are those all parks with rides that were practically shut down? Are those sort of all Six Flags branded parks? Just sort of give us a sense of what proportion of the portfolio was able to grow toward the end of October.

Yeah, I think without going into all the individual parks, we saw some softness in Georgia. And if you look at the incident and the ride related closures, that was about half of it. And as I mentioned, that's primarily Georgia and Magic Mountain. And then there are some parks that because of the incident, they had one or two very signature rides closed and that had some impact, some temporary impact. That was not all the parks with ride closures. So if you look at that, that's around half. And then we have the name storm that we mentioned and the other factors there. So Towards the end of the month, we did see improvement. We saw improvement in different regions. There's not a pattern to the improvement that we saw in terms of performance with parks that are branded Six Flags or not. So beyond what we've already discussed, we don't see an impact on the other Six Flags branded parks.

Okay, that's helpful. And then just circling back in the last discussion, could you guys just give us an update on The Maryland and Richmond asset sale specifically?

Yes, the Maryland asset sale is still targeted for late 2027. The buyer is going through a an entitlement process to move toward finalization of the sale. So that hasn't changed. And then in terms of Richmond, we have move forward in a process to and are in a process to evaluate bids. We don't have anything more to say beyond that.

Great. Thanks, all. Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Scholes with Truist Securities. Patrick, your line is open. Good morning, everyone.

When I look at the slide on passes and memberships with the active PACE active pass base up 7.1% as of September 27th, but then expected to be flat to slightly up. That would imply obviously sizable deceleration happened in probably for obvious reasons in October. What was your season pass sales pace in October that would lead to that lower expectation? Thank you.

I would go back to some of the intentional decisions we made in terms of skip level behavior and a later launch. That is a big impact in July in terms of the number sold because for two weeks we weren't selling the next year's pass. The other impact is that we have more people in membership and those are rolling over the calendar period. We're not going to comment on October. What I would say for October is we mentioned the month was softer. The past pace was, in terms of the past sales pace, it was slower as well. And we do have a number of measures, quarter to go, that we believe are going to give us an opportunity for improvement there.

Okay. We'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Varonca with Deutsche Bank. Chris, your line is open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions and all the details so far. John, I think that the reduction in CapEx is certainly a discretionary CapEx is certainly positive. But the question on that is, do the parks look different next year in terms of some of that kind of hard dollar CapEx maybe going over to OpEx in terms of your referenced experiences. Is that going to potentially include things like where live entertainment and other things that maybe make the parks look different each week?

We are looking at expanded events and entertainment, and that will be part of the slate going forward. We have a number of focus parks as part of how we optimize the portfolio and how we optimize the capital allocation and the expense allocation. Magic Mountain, for example, is going to be undergoing a major refurbishment. That's all contemplated in the numbers that Ash shared with you, and that's contemplated within our savings plan. Additionally, in New Jersey, Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags Great America in Chicago, we have similar programs underway. making the parks more friendly, family friendly, providing more comfort, shade amenities. But that's all contemplated within the plan. There may be some expansion in entertainment operating expenses. We did that this year and we'll do it as it makes sense.

OK, thanks. Thanks, John. Very, very helpful. And then I guess just as a follow up, I don't know if you guys gave out any data points on this or how you look at it, but Do you think you still have room on peak attendance days or weekends? And do you see the opportunity going forward when you talk about rebuilding attendance? Do you think that comes more in kind of some of the shoulder days, I guess you might call them? Or do you think that there's still a lot of room on some of these peak weekends and holidays? And I guess I would kind of strip out weather and just kind of look at it on a clean weather basis if that's possible.

Yeah, what I would say is there's a lot of excess capacity in these parks and we're not bumping up on closures or anything like that as we operate. Certainly Halloween is busier. In terms of when during the year do we have opportunities, we'll use our event strategy going forward to help build upon building parts of the year where we have opportunities. If you look at Boysenberry, the food and beverage event at Knott's Berry Farm. It's hugely successful. We don't have similar events in the other parks. We can deploy those at times of year when we have a lot of excess capacity or an opportunity. But that said, we've got opportunity throughout the calendar year. Even in Halloween, we can open earlier. We can stay open later. We can move into September. So there's opportunity throughout the calendar.

Okay.

Thanks.

We have reached the end of our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to John for closing remarks.

Thank you. We appreciate you joining us this morning. We're energized by the opportunity ahead and grateful to our team members across all of the parks. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.