LUCK Lucky Strike Entertainment Corporation

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Lucky Strike Entertainment Corporation Q4 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator
Conference Operator
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Lucky Strike Entertainment Q4 2026 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Bobby Lavan, Chief Financial Officer. Bobby, please go ahead.
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Good morning to everyone on the call. This is Bobby Lavan, Lucky Strikes President and Chief Financial Officer. Welcome to our conference call to discuss Lucky Strikes fourth quarter 2026 earnings. Today, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the period ending June 29th, 2026. A copy of the press release is available in the investor relations section of our website. Joining me on the call today is Thomas Shannon, our founder and chief executive. I would like to remind you that during today's conference call, we may make certain forward-looking statements about the company's performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore one should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements are also subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed. additional information concerning factors could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in our forward-looking statements. You should refer to the cautionary statements contained in our press release, as well as the risk factors contained in the company's filings with the SEC. Lucky Strike Entertainment undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after today's call. Also during today's call, the company may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. the GAAP financial measures most directly comparable to each non-GAAP financial measure discussed in the reconciliation of the differences between each non-GAAP financial measure and the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Tom.
Thomas Shannon
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, everyone, for joining today's call. Despite a weak consumer at the lower end of the K and general macro uncertainty, We finished fiscal 2026 with the same store sales comp of minus 0.2%, a three and a half point improvement over the prior year and our best comp performance since fiscal 2023. Total revenue grew 4% to $1.245 billion and adjusted EBITDA was $333 million, reflecting a year of deliberate investment in marketing and our water park platform and in the technology and leadership that position us for fiscal 2027. Had it not been for the World Cup and its record-breaking viewership and the conflict in the Middle East that drove consumer confidence to its lowest level in 70 years, our full-year comp would almost certainly have been positive. There are green shoots across the business and they are broadening. Ex-California, the company comped up plus 0.9% for the year. Retail bowling and shoe revenue comped plus 2.9%. Leagues grew plus 3.6% and accelerated in each of the last four months. Food comped plus 8%. And events, one of our most important product lines, turned positive in May and June for the first time since 2024 and remained positive in July and August, its best stretch in years. The fourth quarter started well. April was roughly flat. may swung to plus 2% and we entered June with strong momentum. That momentum was disrupted by an extraordinary stretch of at-home sports viewership. On June 11th, the most watched World Cup in American television history kicked off on home soil for the first time in a generation. The July 19 World Cup final drew roughly 66 million viewers across platforms the largest American television audience since the Super Bowl. Layered on top of that, the Knicks won their first NBA title in 53 years in the most watched finals in 28 years, averaging more than 20 million viewers a night in our largest market with 33 million people watching the final game. For five straight weeks, millions of consumers who would ordinarily be bowling on a Friday or Saturday night were watching sports from home. June comped minus 7% and pulled an otherwise positive quarter and year slightly into the negative. I want to be precise about what that was and what it was not. It was not a weakening consumer. As we have seen through every exogenous shock since I started this company, the consumer has a short memory and adjusts to new realities quickly. And that is exactly what happened here. Our trends inflected the week after the final and August is rebounding. It was a one-time, five-week programming event on home soil, and it does not repeat next summer. California remains our weakest market, but it is trending better. We made meaningful upgrades to the operating team there, including replacing leadership, and we are overhauling our corporate sales organization in the state. As I outlined on our last call, the full earnings benefit of the cost actions we took beginning in mid-January would land in the fourth quarter and that is exactly what happened. The second quarter's $6 million payroll overrun became a payroll tailwind in the fourth quarter and remained one in July. We made significant advancements this year in analytics, pricing, leagues and capital efficiency. And with AI, our data and insights into the business are accelerating and our ability to optimize key functions like labor management, We reduced capital expenditures by 19% to $114 million from $141 million last year and $194 million two years ago. This is a reduction of $80 million in two years. On marketing, not all of our spending delivered the ROI we expected. We doubled working media and gained significant awareness, but the creative did not generate enough intent. Going forward, our investments will be more targeted, more measurable, and held to a higher return threshold. In fiscal 2027, every marketing dollar needs to generate a return. Otherwise, we will consider reducing marketing as a percentage of revenue. Water parks represented the largest operational change of our summer. A year ago, we directly managed two water parks. This summer, we directly managed five, including Raging Waters Los Angeles, which we closed on in January for $45 million. We are in five really good markets with very strong positions, the largest water parks in North Carolina, Illinois, and California, and two very good parks in the Florida Panhandle. That is a step change in operating complexity, and the organization rose to it. Strategically, the season was about striking the right balance between price, attendance, and labor. Across the water park portfolio, per capita spending is up double digits, and payroll is down mid-single digits as we staff to demand. Price and cost discipline held what weather took, and it is the same pattern the large regional park operators described in their calls this month. Attendance pressured by weather, per capita spending up, and the economics protected through revenue management. The weather impact was real and concentrated. Raging waves, our 54-acre water park outside Chicago, saw attendance fall significantly against a June that ran cooler than normal with rainfall well above normal. As I've said before, in this business, pricing has a lot less to do with demand than weather, and a water park cannot comp through a cold, wet summer month. We remain very bullish here. I've described the water parks as a coiled spring. On a trailing 12 month basis through July, the water parks produced $56 million of revenue and $22 million of EBITDA up from 23 million of revenue and 11 million of EBITDA in fiscal 2025. Roughly 80% of summer water park earnings land in our September quarter, which is in fiscal 2027. The business is highly counter cyclical and we'll only get better as we become more experienced operators in this business. The fixes for next season are simple. Sell season passes earlier to hedge out weather and further optimize price and admissions. We're very happy with our boomers parks, which are counter seasonal, high margin and EBITDA positive in every period, delivering $11 million of EBITDA this year, nearly double the prior year. Turning to guidance. for fiscal 2027, we expect adjusted EBITDA of 340 to $360 million. We run a short cycle business and we do not give guidance blindly or optimistically. So we are deliberately guiding conservatively as we work through the year. Importantly, this range reflects prudence around the environment, not the trajectory of our plan. The consumer has already told us in August that they want what we sell, and the keys to this year will be events booking for December and a clean second half after more disturbances than we have ever seen historically. Thank you. With that, let's turn it over to Q&A.
Operator
Conference Operator
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 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. And if you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Steven Wojcicki from Stifel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Steven Wojcicki
Analyst, Stifel
Hey, guys. Good morning. So Tom or Bobby, I mean, if we think about your guidance for this year, if we kind of look at where your assumptions around margins and you guys are kind of all of those are forecasting margins somewhere. I think it's a 20, 27% number versus the 30% long-term target you laid out in the presentation. So, as we think about fiscal year 27, wondering what might be weighing a little bit there on that margin versus your long-term goal. And I know you kind of called out maybe some marketing initiatives and some other things in there as well, but any kind of color around the margin target for this year versus the long-term target would be helpful. Thanks.
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
So we've spent a lot of time on this topic, and we added a slide to our investor deck that will show you that your $900 million of revenue in the portfolio runs at a 42% four-wall EBITDA margin, and all of that's the pre-2022 properties. And then there is $300 million that runs at 30%, and that's everything that we've invested in, built, or acquired over Robert Lavan, Jeffrey Gliner, Robert Lavan, Jeffrey Gliner, Zac Sulma, Peter Murray, Jason Cohen, were pretty happy with the trajectory we're on.
Steven Wojcicki
Analyst, Stifel
Okay, gotcha. And then, you know, Bobby, probably one for you as well, wondering, you know, maybe how we should think about cadence, you know, same store sales cadence for fiscal year 27. Your commentary, I think Tom's commentary around July and August were positive. That sounds good. So it sounds like the first quarter should be positive just based on maybe how September ends up. But any color around the last three quarters of the year in terms of how you guys are maybe, I know it's tough to kind of forecast that, but what you guys are kind of thinking from the same store sales perspective. And then maybe anything from a headwind or tailwind for the last three quarters of the year as well that we should be thinking about?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Moving backwards, June was the worst month I've ever seen here. That is going to be a tailwind next year. We're not going to have the World Cup. Hopefully, the weather in Chicago is better. June has some tailwinds. Last year, we had about $10 million of revenue hit from two different companies. Thank you for joining us. and that business has been positive for the past four months but most importantly going into the end of September last year the December backlog was tracking down 30 this year it's tracking up 10 so we feel and it's still early and that's on a lower base of events but we're pretty happy with where events is going and it The December quarter is going to be a proof of concept that we can execute on the initiatives we lay out.
Steven Wojcicki
Analyst, Stifel
Okay, gotcha. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Operator
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Handler from Roth Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Eric Handler
Analyst, Roth Capital
Yes, good morning. Thanks for the question. I wonder if we could dig in a little deeper on events. A while back, you talked about how you were moving salespeople back into the facilities and there were various initiatives to get the local community to come in and have like pasting programs and everything. What's been going on there and how are you seeing the results from that?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, so we are moving the business forward every day. On July 1, We announced a full restructure. We went to a hybrid model where we have a split of our inbound business between huge companies and localized companies. And then we have our call center, which used to be unique to individual centers, is now covering parties sub-12. So it's a very rebalanced structure where the team can focus on Outbound. And, you know, it's still early, but we're seeing the fruits of the labor there where we're developing clients. We had a client this week who was going to have a party in, you know, in New York and their other offices grabbed on and had parties as well. So it's sort of everybody in the company was doing the same thing and really building that outbound structure. And so, again, you know, this 40 million that we've lost. over the past three years, I think is very achievable to rebuild over the next few years.
Eric Handler
Analyst, Roth Capital
Great, that's helpful. And then, you know, digging in a little bit more on SG&A was up a good amount year over year and sequentially, how much of that was due to promotion of the water parks? How much, you know, where, what were the initiatives that didn't play out as expected? And, you know, what are some of the shifts that you're planning here?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
The biggest thing is we are releasing a new CRM in October. Those investments have been very heavy in the June and September. They'll be heavy in the September quarter. It's the largest IT initiative the company has ever had. Those just flow through SG&A. SG&A sequentially is flat to down.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you for your question. Your next question comes from the line of Randy Koenig from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Randy Koenig
Analyst, Jefferies
Thanks a lot, and good morning, guys. I guess, Tom, in the presser and in your remarks on the quarter, you talked about the capitalist expenditures coming down fairly dramatically from peak levels. and I think there was a point made that those will continue to be kind of just restrained going forward. Can you kind of elaborate on that? Let's dig into that a little bit more and think about, you know, on a multi-year basis, how do you think through what you believe is appropriate levels of capital expenditure in the business and then as you kind of look to generate and accelerate more free cash flow, and how are you thinking about deploying that? Where are we with share purchase activity and so on and so forth? That'd be really helpful. Thank you.
Thomas Shannon
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Well, our CapEx budget for fiscal 2027 is 90 million. So it continues to trend meaningfully lower. In that number, we are finishing the remaining Lucky Strike rebrands and we are doing the AMF rebrands, most of which are already AMF, but not all. Some are transitioning from Bolero brand or an independent brand to AMF. So by the end of this fiscal year, I think we will have finished the rebrandings and we will only have two brands, which will make the marketing message much more focused and efficient. Lucky Strike, and AMF. There's been in the last two years, a significant amount of CapEx spent to sort of catch up deferred maintenance in the water parks and the boomers that we acquired. And that wasn't a surprise. That was part of the investment thesis. And we bought these assets at very attractive prices, but there was a reason and they needed to be refreshed. So we're meaningfully through that cycle. We're also just much more efficient. So we've really become very, very good at doing large CapEx projects like a roof replacement or a parking lot replacement or HVAC upgrade for close to half or even less than we were paying historically by using national vendors with national contracts and all of that. So I think ultimately CapEx, once we get through this rebranding cycle, we'll probably move into the 70 to $80 million range. You know, again, we peaked at, I think it was 194 two years ago, down to 114 in the last year and 90 budgeted for this year. So a pretty good trajectory.
Randy Koenig
Analyst, Jefferies
I think it's Bobby. I guess for Bobby, when you look at the guidance, I think it's slightly up on EBITDA at the midpoint. When you think about, I guess it's higher, excuse me, I was looking at different guidance. But when you look at the different holdbacks you talked about, let's say this year in the World Cup, investment in marketing, the difficult weather impacting the water parks, the California business being subdued or down. Maybe could you kind of dimensionalize for us how impactful those items have been on the P&L, whether from a revenue perspective or an EBITDA perspective to get some perspective of how potentially conservative this fiscal year guide could be for 2027?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, so weather in the third quarter was 10 million. The World Cup was at least 7 million in June, if not 10 to 12. You know, we were tracking in May, very, like, I was super happy with, In May, you know, May we ended plus two and the momentum out of that was great. And then June 3rd happened. And on June 3rd was the first night of the Knicks championship. And we looked at the numbers the next day and we're like, wow, this does not bode well for the World Cup. So it's at least seven, if not 12, because the World Cup did go until July 19th. So you have, you know, frankly, High single digit, low double digit comps the first few weeks of July. And then you had the water parks are about three to five million of incremental weather. Like there's always some weather. So, you know, all of those are there, you know, that's what gives us confidence in a one to 3% comp this year. but if things go our way, it could be better. But weather is something that we've found is more volatile lately. So we're trying to not say, okay, everything's gonna be perfect. So those numbers are partially de-risked in the one to three, but not fully de-risked.
Randy Koenig
Analyst, Jefferies
And maybe just finally, can you just give us a little bit more color on California in terms of just reminding us how big of a contribution it is to the business, how difficult it's been over the last year or two. You talked about changing leadership. Sounds like things are getting sequentially better, i.e. less negative. So just kind of unpack that a little bit more. And do you think California can turn positive this next fiscal year? And if so, what quarter would that be most likely to occur in? Thanks, guys.
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
So California comped minus four last year versus the rest of the company was plus one. So it's about 20% of the business. California is going to be driven by two things. Retail, which we keep talking about marketing. Marketing continues to get better, but I'm not going to say that that's going to be a key driver this year. Marketing or California goes the way events go. So if events is, you know, continues momentum, I would expect California to turn, but we're not factoring that into our forecast this year.
Randy Koenig
Analyst, Jefferies
Super helpful. Thanks, guys.
Operator
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Wold from Texas Capital Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Eric Wold
Analyst, Texas Capital Securities
Thanks. So two questions, I guess. First off, you mentioned, Bobby, a little bit on the parks in terms of trailing 12 months and the plan to sell season passes earlier to maybe hedge out the weather a little bit. Can you update us on the larger projects that are still at hand for the parks that you plan to be off season to kind of what we could see Next year, some kind of capital improvements and new offerings that weren't there this year, what you think they could do?
Thomas Shannon
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, this is Tom Shannon. I'll take this one. So, you know, we didn't close on Raging Waters, Los Angeles, which is our biggest park until January. And we inherited a deficit. as a result, no season passes were really sold in the fall as the seller got ready to transact. The transaction was delayed because it required approval by LA County, which is the landlord for the park. And so, you know, the water parks were, You know, suboptimal, right? But we just acquired them and we just acquired the two biggest in the portfolio. So there's a lot of things that will be done better and certainly with more runway, one of which is, you know, having more of a runway to sell season passes, at least in our two biggest water parks. But also there were some decisions made last year to open the Panhandle Parks later. in the year and to keep them open later, which is happening. And so some of the revenue deficit in Q4 of fiscal 2026 is a result of not having the two parks in the panhandle open earlier, but they are going to go later. So let me just give you an interesting data point. Big Kahuna in Destin, Florida has had a positive attendance comp in 25 out of the last 30 days, and Shipwreck Island in Panama City Beach has had a positive attendance comp in 19 out of the last 30 days. So it's a long summer season, and there were some pretty meaningful headwinds in the quarter that are not necessarily representative of, number one, the business as a whole, the waterproof, Thank you for joining us. semi-large projects that we like to do. I say semi-large on order of $5 million each in Shipwreck Island and in Big Kahuna. I doubt if either of those will be approved in time to do in fiscal 27. So the CapEx in aggregate in the water parks will be pretty minimal, I would say, in all likelihood this fiscal year. And then in the following year, We'd like to do these two large slide towers that would have a lot of presence from the street and drive traffic, also increase the nature of the parks, broaden the audience a little bit. And so that 10 million, give or take, is likely to happen in fiscal 28.
Eric Wold
Analyst, Texas Capital Securities
Got it. And then secondly, if you update us on where you are with the labor efficiency moves, and you talked a little bit about towards the end of the year to the savings, How far along are you? What's been saved so far? How much more do you think you can pull out of the bowling centers and how far have you taken those initiatives at the water parks and FECs?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Let's separate water parks and FECs and bowling because water parks and FECs we're still figuring out what's the optimal on bowling. We're running down a million year over year right now. So a million of savings a month. Our model assumes that that flattens out and that there's actually a inflationary adjustment on payroll as we invest in people, invest in sort of Got it. Thank you both.
Operator
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Hamblin from Craig Hallam Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Jeremy Hamblin
Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group
Thanks for taking the question. So you guys are reducing your CapEx spend as you absorb some of these initiatives in the parks. I wanted to just understand in terms of thinking about to go forward. You've done several acquisitions here over the last few years. And in terms of thinking about the go-forward strategy, there's been a lot to absorb, including the FECs, which have probably a slightly different business model and certainly investment needs. But just thinking about should we expect here over the next year or two as you absorb these, that there may be a kind of reduced kind of acquisition strategy in total as you work on kind of fine tuning the operations for the water parks or as you kind of get through finishing the Lucky Strike conversions.
Thomas Shannon
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, that is accurate to say. We're still in the M&A game, but only opportunistically. We're not actively looking for deals because there is so much opportunity to optimize the existing portfolio. But I wanna be very clear that we view the water park and FEC acquisitions as extremely good. Even when the year is not ideal, we're still in these for probably six and a half to seven X. they are counter seasonal so we generated a lot of cash this summer that we wouldn't have otherwise there were nearly every other than the last week of the month or first week of the month when rent is paid or interest is paid every week was cash flow positive on an operating basis which we've never seen before because things slow down on the bowling side in the summer but with the addition of these assets, we generate a lot of cash. And so we feel really, really good about them, but we are focused on two things, operational improvements, organic EBITDA growth, and effective de-levering.
Jeremy Hamblin
Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group
Got it. And then Tom, you noted that you're going to very carefully look at at marketing investments that are being made and looking for high ROI on those investments. I think, Bobby, you said you've gone from 1% marketing budget to 2% or 2.5%. In terms of thinking about making those incremental investments, How are you viewing the channel of where you're spending on that? Do you feel like there's fine tuning? And then how quickly do you get feedback on whether or not a particular marketing strategy has been effective or hitting the ROI that you're looking for?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
So, you know, we raised spend from, you know, 17 million. Our impressions went from about 75 million a quarter to 350 million a quarter. But our engagement rate is not good enough. And so we're super focused on not taking the person who has intent to bowl and showing them our website more. We're focused on the people who don't necessarily have intent to bowl. and getting them to want the bowl. And that is what we need to push this year. The feedback loop is instantaneous at this point. We have a lot of data that's just driving the engagement with our content. We continue to invest in content. And so ultimately we need to convert the people who don't have intent to intent. and that's where the growth will come from. We are seeing very significant growth in our lane reservations platform, which is the tip of the sphere and the bottom of the funnel. And we need to continue to bring people in there that have more intent. And that's how we're looking at it.
Jeremy Hamblin
Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group
Got it. And then just a quick follow up. In terms of your marketing spend, Thanks so much. Best wishes.
Operator
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski from Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Michael Kupinski
Analyst, Noble Capital Markets
Thank you for taking my questions. I just got a little color around the water parks a little bit. I know that you said that you're looking for higher per cap spending and improved labor efficiency, and I was just wondering if you can maybe quantify the expected incremental revenue and EBITDA contribution from the water parks in fiscal 27, particularly in September. If you could just add a little bit more color there.
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, so TTM EBITDA in June was 14. You know, then it became 22 at the end of July. It'll be, you know, August is still not over. So August can be, you know, we'll drive that TTM to 26. and a few million dollars more from September. One of the issues that Tom discussed is we do staff some of the water parks with J1s. So these are international students who come in. Instead of them coming in in May, they came in for August and September. So we're Thank you for joining us today. We've quantified it. It's about 40 million that we had in 23 that we don't have today. Ultimately, on top of the quantum, there is an element of corporate events during the week is very tip of the sphere to traffic. Ultimately, if you go to a company event, you walk in, you have the wow factor of the lucky strike. and you go I'm bringing my kids this weekend and so we've lost some of that over the past three years and you know ultimately our events business is a tiny percentage of the global or national events business and so we just want to go out and get that business you know from our perspective you know the the December is is our Super Bowl uh you know events becomes 40 percent of revenue Last year, we were down the first two weeks of December. And so that business right now is tracking up.
Michael Kupinski
Analyst, Noble Capital Markets
Gotcha. And if I can squeeze one more in, you have in the past discussed rationalizing the location portfolio as capital intensity comes down. I was just wondering, how many of your locations were you characterized as underperforming and then should investors expect a meaningful number of closures, sales or other portfolio actions in fiscal 27?
Thomas Shannon
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Well, in one sense, you could say they all underperform their potential. The number of centers that we have that are EBITDA negative is like maybe two or three. one of which is a legacy property we inherited from when we bought Lucky Strike that we sort of knew we were just going to exit at the end of the lease term, which is coming up in the next 15 months or so. I would estimate in the next, in this fiscal year, we'll probably shed on order of 10 properties and Most or all of these are properties that we acquired in the last five years after we went public and we had a flurry of M&A activity because there was a focus on unit count, which in retrospect was a mistake. and the mistake that won't be repeated. So we're just rationalizing the portfolio. There won't be anything that I would characterize as seismic. It's really just getting rid of centers in markets where they're peripheral and they're more of a hassle to manage than they're really additive to the portfolio.
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
And we're very focused on leverage. And so if we have properties that on a four-wall basis, we can sell at an accretive leverage multiple. And when you blow it down and say, what does it cost to send the field there? What is IT support? What is insurance support? It's very accretive to our leverage position to sort of sell some of these fringe assets. And we've done a comprehensive review looked at land values, you know, go dark values, you know, and ultimately there is an ability to use asset sales to de-lever business.
Michael Kupinski
Analyst, Noble Capital Markets
Great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Ian Zaffino from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Ian Zaffino
Analyst, Oppenheimer
Hi, Greg. Thank you very much. You know, as far as it kind of Key into the comment about the per caps water parks. What basically is driving some of that color pricing power, you know, maybe there and then versus like your kind of other concepts, what's kind of being the differentiating factor there? Thanks.
Thomas Shannon
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Well, the per caps in the water park were up this year on order of 15%. Robert Lavan, and it surprisingly sold about 10% of them of the season passes were the elite so there was demand at the high end certainly for that product which was good we de-emphasized the season pass this year and we were successful in driving up per cap it was partially responsible for decline in attendance. But, you know, our biggest water park in Los Angeles, it didn't reach 80 degrees there for the first month that it was open. And an air temp of 80 degrees is just not sufficient for a water park. The water temperature was frigid. So we lost, I don't know, I haven't done the math, but, you know, probably 60% of attendance in We were down probably 60% in that month. Now, it has rebounded, but one of the problems with having a slow start to the season is that is when it's most attractive for someone to buy a season pass, right? Because you get to amortize it over the rest of the summer. As you move through the summer, the season pass becomes relatively less attractive. We now view season pass in a completely different way than we did four months ago. Four months ago, we viewed it really as a matter of pricing strategy and mix. We now view it as weather insurance. And so if it had been a good weather season for the water parks, we would look really, really smart for holding out of this premium price model. Problem is, is that you can't predict the weather. And if you have in the case of Raging Waters Los Angeles, a slow start to the season, or at Raging Waves in Yorkville, Illinois, a abnormally cold, rainy summer. You need that built-in season pass revenue to reduce volatility. So this coming year will strike more of a balance between volume and price. And I think we'll get closer to optimal on that.
Ian Zaffino
Analyst, Oppenheimer
Okay, thank you. And then just as a follow-up, Bobby, I know you said the trends were improving since your decline, but what are we kind of looking at now? We backed at that 2% we saw in May. Is there any type of acceleration or any type of notable trends that you're seeing, let's just say July and August? Thanks.
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, so I mean, July, we're going to have to care World Cup. Um, so July, you know, was down low single digits. You know, August is flattening out, but it's, it's not fully there. Um, events is strong. Leagues is strong. Um, you know, the school shifts and the Labor Day shifts a little weird. So, you know, ultimately this weekend will be, you know, very important whether August flips positive or negative. Um, and so ultimately, you know, we're more focused on the December quarter. Um, but generally we are expecting plus one to plus three throughout the year.
Ian Zaffino
Analyst, Oppenheimer
Okay, perfect, thank you so much.
Operator
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of David Hargreaves from Barclays Capital. Your line is open, please go ahead.
David Hargreaves
Analyst, Barclays Capital
Hi, good morning. If we look at the 2027 guide, the 340 to 360, can you give us an idea of how much the contribution from the water parks and boomers will be in that number?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, water parks will be sort of somewhere between 28 and 33. which really comes down to how September plays out and how May and June next year play out. Boomers excludes Big Kahuna, which came with Boomers. Boomers right now is 11 million of EBITDA. And with all the CapEx we put in there, that's anywhere between 10 and 15 million the next 12 months.
David Hargreaves
Analyst, Barclays Capital
Got it. And then if we take the midpoint of the guidance interest, I imagine tax payments will be negligible and 90 million of capex. I think free cash flow should probably be around 50 million. I'm just wondering if that's a fair number to assume.
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
That is a fair number to assume. That does not include in asset sales. We do.
David Hargreaves
Analyst, Barclays Capital
So about. Okay, no, it doesn't include assets. About half of that we could assume maybe is a debt repayment?
Bobby Lavan
President and Chief Financial Officer
The goal would be to pay down the revolver by June. So, yes.
David Hargreaves
Analyst, Barclays Capital
Excellent. Thank you so much.
Operator
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Miller from Truist Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Gregory Miller
Analyst, Truist Securities
Thanks. Good morning, gentlemen. Just one question for me. I'd like to dive more into the performance as possible and your engagement with the players. I saw a press release inter-quarter that spoke about the decision to invest in lane conditioning and oil patterns. And I'm curious if that was driven by customer surveys and and just how important that is to their satisfaction as league bowlers. Thanks.
Thomas Shannon
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
I think machine reliability and lane conditions are critically important to the league bowlers and we are super focused on that now. We've made some structural changes to be able to ensure better machine reliability. We've upgraded the quality of the oil in league heavy houses and we're Thank you for joining us. We view it as a significant growth vector for us going forward, but we have to deliver the product.
Steven Wojcicki
Analyst, Stifel
Thanks.
Operator
Conference Operator
There are no further questions at this time, and we have reached the end of the Q&A session. This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.