Attendance dropped 1.7% at United Parks' properties in the first quarter of 2025, compared with the same period one year earlier.
United Parks' brands include SeaWorld, Busch Gardens and Sesame Place. The company reported attendance of 3.39 million visitors for the three months ending March 31, 2025, down from 3.45 million during the same period in 2024.
"Results in the first quarter were negatively impacted by the timing of Easter and Spring Break holidays moving into the second quarter this year compared to being in the first quarter last year," CEO Marc Swanson said. "The shift of Easter and Spring Break from the first quarter to the second quarter also impacted admissions per capita and in park per capita, as peak operating days that usually come with higher relative pricing and guest spending also shifted from the first quarter to the second quarter this year as compared to prior year."
Specifically, revenue dropped 3.5% for the quarter, to $286.9 million. That contributed to a net loss of $16.1 million - a 44% increase from $11.2 million in the first quarter of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was down 14.8%, to $67.4 million for the quarter.
"As we look ahead to the remainder of the year, we are... encouraged by the 2025 bookings for our Discovery Cove property, our 2025 group bookings and our 2025 international ticket sales, all of which are running ahead of 2024," Swanson said. "With approximately 75% of our historical attendance and revenue opportunity still ahead of us as of April 30, 2025, we continue to expect new records in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA in 2025."
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An interesting tidbit from the Q&A in the investors call: 50% of United Parks' stock is now controlled by private equity firms.
Yo I really enjoy visiting the Sea World parks but as Russell mentioned earlier and I'll second his comment, that surcharge fee is freaking ridiculous and insulting. That fee will end up turning off folks and speaking ill of the company. That is not the way to build customer goodwill and make money.
Again I enjoy the Sea World parks and have for 30+ years but that fee is an insult and it has led me to skip the gift shops, every time.
On one hand, United needs to learn that their scummy practices and cheap rides will only make them a quick buck. I think they should see that anything that made their parks special is now falling apart.
On the other hand, and more selfishly, my home park is BGT, and I enjoy watching United dump money into it. Not a whole lot of other parks get new expansions nearly every year. If this drop in attendance affects that, well, principles be darned.
I agree with above, you can get away with stuff for a while but eventually it catches up with you. It would not shock me at all if this company struggles long term because for years now they have had all the stereotypical problems with private equity ownership and bad management.
This could be a huge problem for Sea World because once you get in the "low cost / low customer loyalty" game its very hard to get out because you start living quarter to quarter and can't afford to carry out a long term strategy. We've seen this story play out over and over, for example when I was a teenager season passes to my home park SFGAm were like $65 and then you had to buy a parking pass on top of that. Here we are over 35 years later and SFGAm's website right now is selling season passes for $75 + a $5 junk fee (so $80) and that includes parking, so the season passes are actually cheaper than they were 35 years ago. Now granted Flashpass didn't exist back then, and the dining pass is relatively new as well (though I would think giving unlimited food away for a low price would be worse than selling it to all of your customers), but still the fact that you can get unlimited admission cheaper now than 35 years ago is staggering. Since 1995 the prices of WDW tickets are up about 250% and the price of a UO tickets are up over 800%. Now granted these are extreme examples, but more comparable I guess you could say a CP season pass is up about 150% in that timeframe. So basically you're playing a dangerous game when you go extreme low-quality because you don't have the ability to price yourself to keep up or outpace inflation.
Of course the smart thing to do for long term success for companies like Sea World and Six Flags would be modest pass cost + good enough operations to make people want to come back. But yea...
If United didn’t add a 9% surcharge to all purchases, how else are they going to afford attraction signs that don’t fall on guests heads? /s
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At least they didn't blame the weather this time. However, it seems to me that the attendance was not actually that far off from the previous year based on this report, at just 60k over a 3 month period, so I'm not sure why they would immediately jump on the holiday shift to explain such a slight decline. What really draws my attention is the net loss over the quarter, which increased nearly $5 million. That is where the chain really needs to look at their policies to see why the loss of 60k guests over the 3 month period contributed to a $5 million loss. Obviously, some of those losses can be attributed to investments made at the parks as well as planning that is clearly being done for additions to be made in future years (for those out of the loop, a number of surveys went out over the past week to indicate some large coasters may be on the way for BGT and SWO). However, I think something that is not clearly articulated in this report, though somewhat hinted at, is that the shifting of Spring Break to Q2 means that Q1 attendance was more weighted towards "regulars" who aren't easily fooled by the company's "taxing" of guests with ridiculous "because we can" fees at the register. Those folks' per cap spending do tend to be lower than one-time visitors already, but the awareness of those fees are a deliberate encouragement to NOT spend in the parks. By highlighting the holiday shift, United Parks is essentially saying that the "suckers" who would normally spend in the parks (and probably unknowingly pay the chain's fees) were not visiting the parks in the same numbers in Q1 as they are expected to in Q2.
If only United Parks would look inward at the real reasons why they are struggling to make money instead of trying to make a quick buck off people who don't know any better or are left with no other choice but to pay this ridiculous fee, which is the most insidious, regressive, policy in the theme park industry today. Say all you want about how much it costs to visit Disney parks, the perceived incompetence of Six Flags, and the frustrations with attractions and VQ at Epic, United Parks' transaction surcharge needs to be called out and more widely publicized so guests thinking that they're getting a value choosing a visit to their parks are made aware of the chain's nefarious and shrewd attempts to pad their profits (or in this case, minimize their losses). That is really what's so infuriating about this situation, because despite jacking up their surcharge to 9%, they still lost $5 million more than they did last year when the surcharge was 5%. Hint United Parks - guests are onto you're nonsense with your BS surcharges, and the same movement that has started rejecting similar attempts in the restaurant industry is coming for you.