Joel K. Manby - SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc.
Management
Thank you, Marc. Before I open the call up to your questions, I have a few closing comments. First, on the governance front, as you may have seen this morning, SeaWorld announced that it has appointed Scott Ross, Founder and Managing Partner of Hill Path Capital, to its board of directors. Scott will also serve on the board's revenue committee. SeaWorld's board of directors is now comprised of nine directors, eight of whom are independent. The board is an excellent blend of top investors, theme park industry insiders and executive-level experts in international business, public company finance and accounting, and marketing and advertising. We welcome Scott to the board and look forward to working together on behalf of all of our shareholders and other important stakeholders. And second, on the operational front, we remain confident in the fundamental attractiveness of our brand and our business. We continue to believe our five-point plan can drive growth by addressing reputational challenges and creating fun and meaningful guest experiences, while maintaining a sharp focus on financial discipline. During the quarter, we implemented the targeted initiatives aimed at addressing our challenges and we're seeing early signs of new momentum, with pass sales through October up for the company overall and significantly up in SeaWorld San Diego. And as expected, attendance trends have improved since Halloween events launched in late September. And as Marc explained, our cost savings are on-target for our $40 million net fixed cost savings goal by the end of 2018, and we believe the savings from the additional restructuring actions we took this quarter will more than enable us to fund the rollout of our new marketing and advertising initiatives with no additional growth in overall expenses. And looking to November and December, which typically represents less than 15% of our annual business, we have an exciting Christmas lineup that should enable us to finish the year on a solid footing. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and friends will return to SeaWorld Parks after their popular debut in 2016 with expanded theme experiences for families to enjoy the Christmas spirit even more. We are continuing to prudently invest to ensure a regular cadence of exciting new attractions to create fun and meaningful guest experiences. Notably, we are making significant investments every year in Orlando over the next five years to attract more domestic customers. We believe this compelling product lineup, our updated pricing strategies, and our promising new marketing and advertising that are already generating positive response, all give us confidence that we're well positioned to improve performance in 2018. And longer term, we're on track with the development of SeaWorld in Abu Dhabi, we're reviewing locations across America for our new Sesame Place park, and we are continuing our evaluation work for the potential development of SeaWorld Parks in China. And with that, I'll open up the call for questions.