Jul 25, 2011
Executives
Jim Reid-Anderson – Chairman, President, Chief Executive Officer John Duffey – Chief Financial Officer Al Weber – Chief Operating Officer Nancy Krejsa – Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications
Analysts
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Co. Ian Corydon – B.
Riley & Co. Eric Wold – Merriman Capital Ken Smalley – Seaport Group Eric Passenial (phon) – Kirsch (phon) Jonathan Luft – Eagle Capital
Operator
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Six Flags Second Quarter 2011 Earnings conference call.
My name is Steve and I will be your operator for today’s call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad.
If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. I will now turn the call over to Nancy Krejsa, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for Six Flags.
Nancy Krejsa
Good morning and thank you for joining us this morning. With me today are Jim Reid-Anderson, Chairman, President and CEO of Six Flags; Al Weber, our Chief Operating Officer, and John Duffey, our Chief Financial Officer.
Following our prepared comments we will open the call for your questions. The Company would like to caution you that comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.
These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such statements, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise them. For a detailed discussion of these risks, you may refer to the Company’s annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC.
Statements made on our call today include non-GAAP financial measures which have been reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and included in our earnings release or other forms filed or furnished with the SEC. You should be aware that the Company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2010, and during this call we will share certain financial results such as revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and modified EBITDA and compare those results to similar periods last year without distinguishing between the predecessor and the successor periods since we believe this is an appropriate and useful comparison.
And now to begin our prepared remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Jim Reid-Anderson.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thanks very much, Nancy, and good morning to everybody on the call. Approximately one year ago, we outlined a new strategy focused on becoming the leading regional theme park company in the world, and I’m pleased with our progress in delivering on that strategy.
This is a multi-year journey to take a good company and make it great by setting a clear strategy, strengthening our operations, improving our financial performance, and building a company culture that unleashes the capabilities of our greatest asset – our employees. I’m really happy to share that our strategic execution is right on track.
In the initial stages of this journey, we identified several large areas of opportunity to drive revenue growth and achieve industry-leading margins. These included improved ticket yields, cost management, and more comprehensive and more integrated marketing and capital plans.
We successfully delivered in these areas over the last three quarters and our second quarter 2011 results provide yet another measurement point for our investors to evaluate our progress. Our Q2 performance was very strong as revenue grew 5% and adjusted EBITDA grew 20%.
Our attendance was up slightly over prior year, despite having 5% fewer operating days in the quarter, due to planned reductions in order to optimize the efficiency of our operations and improve profitability. We are making great progress in our operations.
First, I would like to highlight the effectiveness of our new pricing and marketing strategies which have been extremely successful to date. Six Flags parks provide guests with a truly unique experience and our guests recognize this.
I’m really pleased that measures of guest satisfaction and value perception are both at all-time highs. Despite having a great product and value, Six Flags has a history of offering overly aggressive discounts and this has created an admissions pricing gap between us and our peers, even though we are in the top 10 DMAs in the country.
In addition to unnecessarily large discounts, the discounts have not been structured thoughtfully. Our approach is to steadily increase our ticket yield to industry-leading levels by doing two things.
First, we are reducing the overall of discounts we offer. For example, instead of offering a buy one, get one free coupon, we might instead offer $20 off the gate price or off a kid’s price for adults.
By doing this, our discount is effectively reduced yet remains an excellent value for customers. Second, we are fencing the timing of discounts.
This means we offer higher discounts during non-peak periods and lower discounts during peak attendance days. In prior years, the majority of our discount programs provided the same discount from the beginning to the end of the season.
As you can see from our financial results, our admissions pricing strategy is working. In the second quarter, admissions revenue per cap increased $1.88 or 9%, and nearly all of this incremental revenue dropped to the bottom line.
I’m pleased with our initial progress on this multi-year opportunity. In the area of marketing, we believe the implementation of our localized Go Big campaign is also right on target.
Although we are a national company, our business model is regionally based. Our new marketing program delivers news about each park to local audiences via local media such as TV, radio, cinemas, billboards, and online, keeping individual parks as the heroes of our advertising campaign.
Our marketing strategy is also working as we have seen a double-digit increase in our season pass sales through June, an uptick in the number of first-time visitors to our parks, and a modest increase in group sales bookings. I believe our capital planning process has also significantly improved over the last year.
We now have a five-year capital plan in place and are well prepared going into the 2012 season. For the 2011 season, all of our new rides and attractions were up and running ahead of the peak summer months, including great rides such as the new Texas Giant at Six Flags Over Texas, the Green Lantern at Great Adventure, the Green Lantern at Magic Mountain which is the coaster capital of the world, and Daredevil Dive at Six Flags Over Georgia.
These are just a few examples of all we have implemented and I couldn’t be happier with our teams’ thoughtful execution on new capital, including improved cost efficiency. The success of our capital spending will continue to come from catering to local guest preferences and generating consistent excitement in every park year after year.
It is important to note that guests come to experience our new attractions but also all of the other things that our park has to offer, from animal shows to singing, dancing, musical shows, parades, cotton candy, funnel cakes – my personal favorite, skill games, water rides, climbing walls, bumper cars, cartoon characters, fireworks, concerts, and more. Our parks truly offer a unique experience for family and friends to escape and build lifetime memories of fun and laughter.
Taking care of our guests is our number one priority. Corporate sponsorship revenue was lower, really due to our strategy to build more profitable relationships.
We have and will continue to exit relationships that don’t meet our brand-building and profit objectives; however, we have an excellent team in this area and we are adding new, high-quality sponsorships every week. In the area of operating costs, we continue to make good progress in implementing programs that improve our efficiency.
Some of these programs are complete and others are in progress. Net-net, we continue to reduce our fixed cost base and are continuously seeking new areas to improve the efficiency of our operations.
Our financial results are proof that our focused business strategy is working by effectively driving higher profitability, strong cash flow, and improved shareholder value. In fact, our Q2 modified EBITDA margin improved by 415 basis points versus Q2 of 2010 and on a last 12-month basis, was up over 760 basis points to just below 36%.
Based on our success to date and our view to the future developed through our long-range planning process that we put into place earlier this year, we have announced in our earnings release today a new, long-term aspirational profit target. That target is to achieve $500 million of modified EBITDA by calendar year 2015.
As a reference point, our LTM modified EBITDA through June 2011 was $354 million. Our new long-term target will be achieved by a continued focus on the same drivers that have improved profitability over the last year.
We felt it was important for both our investors and our employees to set our sights on a new stretch goal based on modified EBITDA. Modified EBITDA represents all the value we create for our shareholders and the limited partners of our partnership parks.
In addition, modified EBITDA margin is the best financial measure to compare our success versus our peers. I have to say that there is a lot of work to do to achieve this aspirational target, but our team is laser focused on shareholder value creation.
Our continuing success is a result of our re-focused strategy, talented and highly motivated employees, and everyday execution. I’m really confident that we are on the right path and that we have a bright future ahead for the Company and for our shareholders.
Now I’m going to turn the call over to John Duffey so he can share more details on our financial performance. John?
John Duffey
Thank you, Jim, and good morning to everyone on the call. As Jim mentioned, we are very pleased with our second quarter and year-to-date performance.
As our press release indicated, attendance in the second quarter was up slightly compared to prior year. As in the first quarter, we made the decision to not open on days with marginal profitability, which reduced our operating days by 5% in the second quarter.
In addition, we did see an unfavorable impact on attendance due to adverse weather, particularly in June, and we intentionally reduced the number of free tickets we offered by approximately 100,000 tickets as compared to Q2 last year. However, we feel very good about the trends that we have seen in the first half of the year, including a double-digit increase in season pass unit sales over prior year and a modest increase in pre-bookings for group events.
Our $17 million or 5.4% revenue growth in the quarter was primarily driven by a $15 million or 9% increase in admissions revenue and a $5 million or 4% increase in in-park revenues. This was partially offset by a $3 million decline in sponsorship, licensing and accommodations revenue driven primarily by our decision to exit certain sponsored deals that had no or minimal profitability.
Total revenue per capita for the quarter increased $2.11. Year-to-date revenue increased $21 million or 5.7% due to a 9% increase in admissions revenue and a 5% increase in in-park revenues, partially offset by lower sponsorship and licensing revenue.
Cash operating costs declined approximately $5 million in the quarter versus prior year and were down $12 million year-to-date. The second quarter and first half expense reductions resulted from efficiencies in seasonal labor, reductions in marketing cost, lower headcount, and the elimination of certain corporate-level expenses.
We were very pleased with our EBITDA performance in the quarter. The combination of the strong revenue growth and expense reduction contributed to an adjusted EBITDA growth of $19 million or 20% in the quarter.
Year-to-date adjusted EBITDA was $65 million, a $30 million or 86% increase over the comparable period in 2010. LTM adjusted EBITDA was $325 million and our LTM modified EBITDA margin was 35.5%, up 760 basis points over Q2 2010 LTM and up approximately 240 basis points from our 2010 full-year margin.
The Company repurchased 287,000 shares of its stock in the quarter, 574,000 shares on a split adjusted basis for approximately $22 million, which increased total year-to-date purchases to approximately $42 million. The Company has limited incremental capacity for restricted payments under its existing credit facility, and consequently you should expect no share repurchases through the balance of the year.
We invested approximately $37 million in CAPEX during the second quarter and approximately $60 million through the first six months of the year. We think of capital spending as our innovation, much like R&D spending, and these investments are an integral part of our long-term success.
As we completed our first ever long-range planning process earlier this year, we concluded that capital spending should be approximately 9% of revenue on a go-forward basis. Having this consistency will allow us to keep our parks in great shape and also ensure we are bringing new thrills and excitement in all of our parks each and every year.
Net debt as of June 30 was $829 million, which consisted of reported debt of $971 million less unrestricted cash of $142 million. Our change in net debt for the quarter was $67 million, which represents a combination of our operating cash flow and investing activities.
The $67 million of cash generated in the quarter included approximately $30 million of payments relating to the arbitrator’s award regarding the Company’s former CFO, $22 million for stock purchases, and approximately $2 million in dividends. Adjusting for these non-operating outflows, the Company generated over $120 million of operating cash in the quarter which included an approximately $32 million increase in deferred revenue.
The Company is in a very good position with significant cash on hand and no outstanding borrowings on its revolver. Our net debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA multiple is now 2.6 times.
The strong performance in the quarter as well as our very positive trends in season pass and group bookings provides good momentum into the second half of the year, and we are very pleased to see our ticket yield, marketing and cost initiatives taking hold and driving gains in profitability and cash flow. Early in the call, Jim shared our newly announced modified EBITDA target of 500 million by 2015.
Obviously if we are successful in achieving this goal, the Company will be generating a substantial amount of cash. Given the declining leverage profile of the Company and our new long-term profit target, the next logical question would be about our capital structure and uses of cash.
As I mentioned earlier, outside of modest dividends, our current credit agreement covenants restrict our ability to pay additional cash to shareholders in the near term, which means we will accumulate cash. We believe with continued strong operational performance, we will be in an excellent position by the end of this year to refinance our debt and establish a more appropriate and flexible capital structure.
We anticipate sharing more about our capital structure goals as we go through that process in the third and fourth quarters. Now I’d like to turn the call back over to Jim.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thanks very much, John. We look forward to the third quarter, which is our peak quarter for the year.
I have had the opportunity to visit all of our parks over the past few weeks, both to talk with employees and sometimes to visit as a guest. I must say that our parks are in excellent condition and our people really know how to make our guests feel special.
Most importantly, our employees are aligned with our strategy and are eager to execute. Although we, like any other normal company, have areas of our operations where we need to improve, those areas are addressed as part of our long-range plan.
I want to emphasize that our strategy is a multi-year approach where we have opportunity to grow our business in a healthy way through attendance, ticket yield, in-park sales, corporate sponsorships, and international licensing; in other words, I believe we have plenty of opportunity to further increase shareholder value over the short, medium and long term. Those are the end of our prepared comments, and at this time I’m going to ask Steve, the operator, to open up the call to your questions.
Steve?
Operator
At this time I would like to remind everyone, if you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star then one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Ian Zaffino from Oppenheimer & Company.
Your line is open.
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Company
Great, thank you very much. Quick question would be on the attendance side – if you look at the days that the park was actually open—or your parks were open, so if you net out the ones that weren’t open, on an apples-to-apples basis, would those also be up 5%, just given that you had 5% less operating dates, or is there something wrong with my math?
Jim Reid-Anderson
Al, would you like to take this one?
Al Weber
Sure Jim, thank you. Ian, yes, the simple math says that we’re slightly up in attendance and we’re down 5% days for the quarter.
Our average attendance per day would be up 5%.
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Company
Okay. And as far as you—I know you mentioned in the past you have flexibility to kind of ratchet up discounts if you see attendance flailing, or vice versa – you could reduce discounts more if you have great attendance.
In that calculus, what do you really target as far as your attendance, because they are dependent events, right? There’s elasticity.
What’s the baseline attendance level that you shoot for or that would make you happy? Would you be happy with flat attendance or do you really look to grow attendance?
If you could kind of give us some color there, thanks.
Jim Reid-Anderson
I think, Ian, you’ve heard me talk before about the fact that this is a year when we’re going through a paradigm change, and I think you’ve also heard me say that we are not counting on attendance. And I reinforce that because the key to our success is going to be realigning the pricing matrix and really driving the cost down, which is what we’re in the midst of doing.
And so if we get attendance gains, then that’s obviously cream on top of the cake. So we internally have numbers that we focus on, but we’re very, very reluctant – although we can use discounting to be able to do whatever we need to do with attendance – we’re reluctant to do that because that’s what the Company has done going back for at least a decade, and that process helped to spiral margins down over a period of time.
So the key and the focus will be on discipline around pricing and around yield, and we will carefully monitor attendance as we go along.
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Company
So I guess if I was to read a little bit more into that, I guess that would assume that you’d be happy with—that you’re basically going to reduce the discounts and push yields to the point where you get flat attendance.
Jim Reid-Anderson
I’m not going to comment on what our attendance is going to be. You know that we don’t give guidance; but our focus is on improved margin, improved profitability, and higher cash flow.
What we’re trying to do is drive shareholder value.
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Company
Okay, thank you very much.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thanks, Ian.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Ian Corydon of B. Riley & Company.
Your line is open.
Ian Corydon – B. Riley & Company
Thank you. Just a follow-up on attendance a little bit.
Can you talk about what the impact of the Easter shift was, and then do you plan to have fewer operating days in Q3 and Q4 as well?
Al Weber
Ian, this is Al. As we mentioned in Q1, we talked about the reduction in operating days, half of which were intentional, half of which were the shift into Q2 which obviously occurred.
As Jim mentioned, we’re down operating days 5% in Q2, so there was some intentional reduction in days that were far less profitable; but most of the adjustment in the operating calendar for this year has really taken place. There might be modest adjustments in Q3 and Q4, but most of the adjustment has already taken place year-to-date.
Ian Corydon – B. Riley & Company
Okay, great. And then on the ticket per cap side, you did over 9% in the first quarter and the second quarter.
I think you’re up against a little bit tougher comparison in the third quarter. Is there any reason why that 9% number for the first half is not sustainable in the second half?
Jim Reid-Anderson
Well Ian, I think I’d reinforce again. I know it sounds like a broken record, but we don’t give guidance.
But what I will tell you is that our objective is to continue to try to drive per caps in a positive way in order to ensure we continue to improve margins. So we look at pricing at an ongoing basis to try to adjust that, but I’m not going to give you a number.
Ian Corydon – B. Riley & Company
Okay. And then on the in-park per cap, what’s driving that up year-over-year, and how do you sustain that?
Al Weber
Well as we’ve made comments before, Ian, the focus on in-park is really about making sure we add products that guests really enjoy or they need, and we continue to hone in the product offerings to the guests, and it’s shown some traction in the per caps year-to-date.
Jim Reid-Anderson
I think I’d add to that – this helps to reinforce my earlier points, Ian, about the corporate alliance side where we’ve taken out deals that may not have been ideal from a branding or a profitability perspective. We’ve taken those in-house and been able to drive our per caps up fairly radically.
So whilst you might see a reduction in corporate alliance revenue, it’s offset elsewhere.
Ian Corydon – B. Riley & Company
Got it. And my last question is on the $500 million modified EBITDA goal.
Can you just talk about, should the improvements you see there be pretty ratable through the 2015 period or is there any reason why they are weighted more towards the front or the end of that period?
Jim Reid-Anderson
I think it’s a reasonable assumption to have that it would be ratable over the period; but the one thing that we as a management team are is driven to try to achieve goals as quickly as we can. But it’s a big goal and it’s aspirational, so that’s a reasonable assumption that you’ve laid out.
Ian Corydon – B. Riley & Company
Great. Thank you very much.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thank you, Ian.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Wold from Merriman Capital. Your line is open.
Eric Wold – Merriman Capital
Thank you, good morning. Just a follow-up question on the last one about the $500 million modified EBITDA target.
Can you give any sense of what revenue growth may be assumed in there, and is there anything else in there that’s not a current part of operations in the current parks in operation now?
Jim Reid-Anderson
I think that’s a very reasonable question, Eric. It does not assume any change in structure or other parks added in.
It’s assuming the existing base business, and we do not—we’re not giving any revenue targets or anything else. We’re simply saying that’s the goal we would like to achieve.
Eric Wold – Merriman Capital
Okay, fair enough. And then the second question – on the season pass sales of double-digit since June, any detail there in terms of kind of what the unit sales versus ASP may have been on those sales, and then any major variability in sales trends in different parts of the country?
Al Weber
Eric, this is Al. Yes, we don’t give individual park or area information.
The season pass number being double-digit is really a year-to-date number. We’ve been very fortunate to generate a lot of increased sales and membership in that category, and it’s pretty much across the board in the game.
Jim Reid-Anderson
I think, Al, as well we’ve generated a lot of incremental cash too in that process, and we’ve got it early.
Al Weber
Yes, it’s involved a lot of cash to be caught up in the deferred revenue category, which obviously is a good thing for us which gets put into the operation on a visitation basis as the attendance goes through the rest of the year.
Eric Wold – Merriman Capital
Okay, perfect. And just to follow on – was there anything in that double-digit, though, that’s kind of ASP versus unit sales?
Jim Reid-Anderson
We’re not breaking that down, but what I can tell you is that our—we have a margin improvement on season pass as well, so in essence we’ve taken pricing there too.
Al Weber
And just to be clear, the double-digit increase I referenced was units, not revenue.
Eric Wold – Merriman Capital
Okay. Okay, perfect Thank you very much.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Ken Smalley from the Seaport Group. Your line is now open.
Ken Smalley – Seaport Group
Hey, congratulations on the quarter, guys.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thanks, Ken.
Ken Smalley – Seaport Group
A quick question on pricing. I noticed you’re taking up prices over the summer months on your websites.
Are you seeing any negative from the admissions side there? And I have one other follow-up question.
Jim Reid-Anderson
One of the interesting things, Ken, is that we’re tracking even more closely with a higher number of guests our overall guest satisfaction perception, and one of the things that’s popped up is we’ve hit record highs in terms of overall guest satisfaction, and we track in their value perception, and that is also at a record high or at least right up there. So we have not seen any immediate reaction from guests to the pricing increases that we’ve taken.
Ken Smalley – Seaport Group
Great. And secondly, I know you’re trying to avoid this question, but at quarter end you’re going to have a ton of cash on the balance sheet.
You’re going to be levered less than two times. You’re talking about addressing your covenant issue because you’re gated out of additional share buybacks.
Are you looking more at just refinancing the debt or taking the debt level up here, because clearly given your aspirational EBITDA levels and the low cyclicality of this business, your balance sheet could handle much more debt than you have on there now.
Jim Reid-Anderson
This is something that we review every quarter with our board, Ken, and we will do that again in the next quarter. John’s comment earlier said that we’re going to come back to the investor group in our next quarterly call, and we will do that.
Clearly we are generating a tremendous amount of cash and continue to. We expect that process to be ongoing, and I think that’s very, very good for our shareholders.
One final point is that we do have the ability to refinance right now if we want to. The problem is that there is a substantial fee in doing so, and again, we do everything whilst considering what’s good for our shareholders.
So we will refinance when we feel it’s best for our shareholders.
Ken Smalley – Seaport Group
Thank you, guys.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thank you, Ken.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Passenial from Kirsch. Your line is now open.
Eric Passenial – Kirsch
Hi guys. Just a quick question on the current environment.
I guess some industry participants have made reference to an industry-wide decrease in theme park attendance since July 1. Can you give us some color on that current environment?
Are you seeing any impact from the current heat wave?
Jim Reid-Anderson
Eric, we don’t comment on current quarter. We only comment on what we’ve reported on through the end of Q2, and we’ve stated very clearly there our attendance through the end of Q2 was slightly up.
Eric Passenial – Kirsch
Yeah, but maybe not in terms of numerically, but is there any concern with the current weather? You know, it’s 110 degrees in Chicago, I think, the heat index.
Is that something to be concerned about, or should we not—
Jim Reid-Anderson
Well, as John referenced when he talked about the first half of the year, you do get an effect from weather and we definitely had an effect in June that was substantial because of the weather. And so if you have a lot of rain, a lot of cold, or a lot of heat, it can have an effect on your overall attendance.
Now, one of the benefits that we have is that we also have a substantial number of water parks, which in the heat can really help to alleviate some of the problems and concerns that exist there. But we will not comment on the third quarter.
Eric Passenial – Kirsch
All right, but just generically speaking, is the business balanced enough with the water parks that any sort of heat wave, it’s sort of a wash that the water parks will offset any negative impact on the theme parks.
Al Weber
Eric, this is Al. Again, weather has been a part of our business forever.
Heat, rain will affect the day, the week, a month or even a quarter; but overall the entire year and across the portfolio, which is diverse as Six Flags, it normalizes itself out.
Eric Passenial – Kirsch
Okay, great. And just one follow-up on the season pass sales, which were very strong for the first part of the year and, I guess, since June, if I understood you correctly those were not discounted season pass tickets versus earlier in the year, whatever level you were selling the tickets at at the beginning of the season, more or less the same level ASP-wise, price-wise for the--?
Jim Reid-Anderson
Well, I think John quoted a year-to-date number, so you’ll have a mix in there; and as you were pointing out right now, pricing goes up as you go through the year. So the more recent sales of season passes have been at higher prices.
Eric Passenial – Kirsch
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thanks very much, Eric.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Luft from Eagle Capital. Your line is open.
Jonathan Luft – Eagle Capital
Hi guys. Congratulations on the quarter.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thanks, Jonathan.
Jonathan Luft – Eagle Capital
Most of my questions have been answered. Maybe if you could just flush out a little bit more the guest satisfaction and the value perception scores being at all-time highs.
What’s really driving that? Is that—in your feeling, is that the new rides in the park?
Just maybe help us understand that a little bit better.
Jim Reid-Anderson
John, I think it’s a series of things, but the most fundamental reason is that there is a renewed focus at the Company on taking care of our guests, on guest safety, on cleanliness, on the overall experience, on providing just an exceptional memory for our guests. And so our people go out of their way to do that, and they understand that that’s a very important measure for our Company.
So we are seeing all-time highs on guest satisfaction, and I think that when you think of the value of theme parks and you think about our average per cap – just over $20 in order to be able to get into the park – I think that compares very favorably to what guests would spend going to, let’s say, a cinema or a theater, and yet they get all day in a theme park, participating in all of these activities. So I think from a value perspective, we really are a value.
We need to do a better job of telling that story and hopefully we can succeed in continuing to build that perception in a positive way.
Jonathan Luft – Eagle Capital
Great. That makes a lot of sense.
And just one other question – as far as just the consumer and the value, can you maybe talk a little bit about the elasticity of yields and pricing? Do you see as you take pricing up, less in-park spending – people buy the ticket and then spend less in the park, or is there really very little elasticity in that respect?
Jim Reid Anderson
Well obviously at some point, there is a point at which consumers will not pay more; and I think the Company back in 2006 took very radical price increases and saw an issue. So we have been very careful in the way that we are pricing in order not to be perceived as gouging consumers or going too far.
So the approach we take is to take very small steps, one to two dollars here between the ticket prices at the gate and discounting, in order to ensure that consumers do not feel like we’re going too far. We watch this very carefully and we’re in a position that if we see an issue, we can pull back.
I do want to say, though, it’s very important that you understand that the points that I made earlier about our target for 2015 are really true – the drivers that have been successful for us over the last year, which in large part is also pricing related, will be the same drivers that will carry us into the future, we believe. So we do not feel that we’ve hit that point where pricing is an issue yet.
Jonathan Luft – Eagle Capital
Perfect. Thanks so much.
Operator
Your next question is a follow-up from the line of Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer & Company. Your line is open.
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Company
Great. Two more questions.
You gave the modified target for EBITDA. Can we read into that as far as what’s going to happen with maybe Dick Clark and the other parks that you only partially own?
Jim Reid-Anderson
No, Ian, I wouldn’t read anything into it except to say that the beauty of a modified EBITDA target is, as I said earlier, it’s kind of a best measure allowing us to compare our success versus our peers on a direct way, because they don’t have partnership parks or Dick Clark. So it allows people to see just how strong we are, sitting today at 354 million of EBITDA after 12 months of very hard work.
We think we can go further.
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Company
Okay. And the other question would be—I know you guys have talked in the past about if you have poor weather earlier in the season, oftentimes the guest doesn’t go away forever, that they actually come back, so if you get rained out in June, you have plenty of the summer to make up that missed visit.
Have you seen that yet, or does that suggest June weather—poor June weather would portend very well for July attendance or August attendance, or am I just thinking about that wrong?
Jim Reid-Anderson
Ian, I love your approach to getting a Q3 number or a target, but we won’t give that. I think that you have heard that from us before, and we do believe it.
And I think when you think about the season pass number that John and Al talked about earlier, it’s a very positive thing because we’ve in essence got people locked up. They’ve spent the cash – at some point, they will visit the park.
Al, do you want to add to that?
Al Weber
No, I think that was very clear.
Ian Zaffino – Oppenheimer & Company
Okay. All right, thanks again.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Thanks, Ian.
Operator
As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. And there appears to be no further questions.
I’ll turn the call back for closing remarks.
Jim Reid-Anderson
Okay, thanks very much, Steve, and thank you to everyone who joined our call this morning. I want you all to know that I feel even better about my role at Six Flags than I did on the day I joined the Company.
We really appreciate your support and truly hope you have the opportunity to visit one of our parks so you can experience your investment at work firsthand. Thank you and take care.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.