Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Ardent Leisure Group Limited Half Year 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are in listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I'll now like to hand this conference over to Dr. Gary Weiss, Chairman. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to present the results for Ardent Leisure Group for the first half of FY 2022. We are pleased to deliver another solid result for Ardent Leisure Group despite the significant ongoing challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. As set out in our release results, Main Event has continued to perform above pre-COVID levels, and we are optimistic that this positive momentum will continue into the second half of FY 2022. In Australia, the recent reopening of Queensland borders, easing of restrictions and successful launch of the Steel Taipan roller coaster in December 2021 has seen the theme parks and attractions business pick up demand in both local and interstate markets during the latter part of the period. However, this was somewhat dampened by a surge in Omicron cases and impediments to travel related with state government COVID-19 testing requirements. Strong trading performances in the Main Event business and a disciplined approach to capital and operational expenditure in theme parks and attractions have allowed the group to maintain a solid financial position. Ardent is extremely fortunate to have highly experienced and dedicated leadership in place at both of our businesses. In the U.S., the Main Event team, headed by Chris Morris and Darin Harper, continue to be inspirational and have led from the front, and they and all the rest of the team have executed superbly and to the highest standards. In Australia, Greg Yong and his team at Theme Parks have similarly led by example during these most difficult and challenging times and have continued to drive excellent execution throughout. I'll now pass over to Darin Harper to take you through the results. Thank you, Gary, and good morning, everyone. On slide 2, I'll briefly touch on a few highlights before digging into more detail on subsequent slides. First, as Gary mentioned, our financial results for the first half of FY 2022 continue to show significant improvement versus the prior corresponding period. Group revenue was up nearly AUD 138 million on the prior period, and EBITDA, excluding specific items, was up almost AUD 62 million. The increase in both revenue and profit largely reflects the ongoing strength in revenue performance at Main Event. Main Event constant center revenues for first half of FY 2022 increased over 20% versus pre-COVID levels. This strong performance is in spite of significant ongoing softness in our corporate group business, as demonstrated by the fact that our constant center walk-in revenue for the first half of FY 2022 was up nearly 40% versus pre-COVID levels. We'll discuss Main Event's financial performance in more detail shortly, but we remain very pleased with our revenue performance through the start of the second half of FY 2022 as well. For the first half of FY 2022, theme parks and attractions revenue increased over 40%, with total attendance up 17% versus the prior period, despite ongoing border restrictions and snap lockdowns for most of the period. EBITDA, excluding specific items, was a loss of AUD 12.2 million, compared to a loss of AUD 3.7 million in the prior year, largely reflecting a AUD 6 million decline in net government grants and subsidies versus the prior period. Greg will discuss the performance of the business unit in greater detail later in the presentation. Moving to slide 3. Revenue for the group for the first half of FY 2022 was AUD 275.5 million, an increase of over one hundred versus the prior period. This increase was driven by year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 109% for Main Event and 41% for theme parks and attractions. This revenue performance for both businesses was generated despite the ongoing pandemic in both the U.S. and Australia. Group EBITDA, excluding specific items, was AUD 41.3 million, up from AUD 61.6 million in first half of FY 2021, primarily driven by the strong performance in the U.S. business. Corporate costs continued to be managed well, with the AUD 0.9 million increase mainly due to higher insurance premiums in the current period. By year of comparison to pre-COVID performance, revenue for the first half of FY 2022 was over AUD 28 million higher than the pro forma results for the first half of FY 2020. EBITDA, excluding specific items, was nearly AUD 23 million higher. This outperformance to pre-COVID levels demonstrates the strength of the group's overall revenue performance and significant flow-through of the incremental dollars to the bottom line due to high operating leverage. Net borrowing costs decreased by AUD 1.6 million in the current period due to lower outstanding US dollar debt and a remission of AUD 1.2 million of interest payable to the ATO. This decrease was partially offset by higher interest with respect to RedBird's investment, as well as incremental borrowing costs related to the QTC loan. Lastly, on this slide, the current period reflects tax expense of AUD 1.4 million compared to a tax benefit of AUD 1 million in the prior period, due to improved trading results, partially offset by reduction in tax losses and deductible temporary differences not recognized as deferred tax assets in the current period. On slide 4, we've presented the key specific items impacting the results, which we believe are useful in better understanding the group's performance. For the first half of FY 2022, in addition to the call-out of the customary lease accounting impact, I'll call your attention to the LTI plan valuation expense as well as the RedBird option valuation expense. The group incurred a $10.2 million LTI plan valuation expense related to the Main Event long-term incentive plan, reflecting an increase in equity value associated with the improved performance of the business. As described in our FY 2021 annual report, this is a one-time award grant that is linked to the future appreciation equity value in Main Event, with payment only occurring upon a future realization event. Additionally, the group's results were also impacted by an AUD 10.8 million non-cash RedBird option valuation expense, which reflects the estimated increase in the value of the option, which is due to the improved performance of the Main Event business. As described in the FY 2021 annual report, AASB 132 requires the RedBird investment to be treated as a compound financial instrument, which results in a derivative option liability being recorded and revalued at each reporting date. Further on the slide, tax expense includes AUD 7 million related to tax losses and deductible temporary differences not recognized as deferred tax assets in the current period. It's important to note that the economic benefits of these deferred tax assets remain to the extent the business generates future taxable income, however, the recognition is not currently reflected. Let's now move ahead to slide six and discuss Main Event's performance in a little bit more detail. Total U.S. dollar revenue of $188.6 million in the first half of FY 2022 was 109.1% higher than prior period, driven by strong performances in both constant and non-constant centers, as well as incremental revenue from new centers. Total constant center revenue growth year-over-year was up 94%. The prior period of FY 2021 was impacted by much softer revenue performance due to COVID-19, including the temporary closure of several sites. Versus pre-COVID levels, representing the first half of FY 2020, total and walk-in constant center revenue performance was up 20.1% and 39.5% respectively. During the current period, one new center was opened in Chesterfield, Missouri, on September 1, and this location has performed above expectations. This opening brings the total number of centers to 45 across 16 states as of 28 December 2021. The strong revenue performance for Main Event drove significant EBITDA generation. EBITDA, excluding specific items for the first half of FY 2022, was $42.6 million, which was an increase of $52 million versus the prior year. As means of comparison, Main Event's performance in the first half of FY 2022 versus pre-COVID and pro forma adjusted FY 2019 reflected higher revenue of $44 million and higher EBITDA, excluding specific items, of nearly $25 million. The strong EBITDA performance was unfavorably impacted by increased commodity costs, higher wage rates, and other operating expenses. However, despite the additional cost pressures, Main Event's EBITDA margin, excluding specific items, increased over 10 percentage points to 22.6% for the first half of FY 2022 versus the first half of pre-COVID in FY 2020. The ongoing strength in Main Event's trading performance during the period has continued to support a strong balance sheet and has positioned the business well for future growth, with several anticipated new center openings over the next 12 months. With that, I'll hand the call over to Chris Morris. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Darin. Thank you everyone for joining us this morning. Picking up on slide seven, we continue to be very pleased with the performance of our business and incredibly proud of the work being done by our team members all over the country and throughout all areas of our business. We have generated record-breaking sales and profitability performance since March, highlighting the remarkable strength and unit economics of our business. We believe this performance reflects not only the robust post-recovery consumer demand for out-of-home entertainment here in the U.S., but also reflects the success of our strategic initiatives and the pre-COVID sales momentum we have built upon over the last 18 months. Since March, constant center revenue performance has been significantly ahead of pre-pandemic levels, driven by strong walk-in performance despite continued softness with corporate group business. December 2021 constant currency revenue growth was negatively impacted by an estimated 22% due to soft corporate group performance and Christmas occurring on a Saturday in 2021 versus a Wednesday in 2019. Further, the Omicron variant began to impact walk-in performance. January 2022 constant currency revenue growth was negatively impacted by an estimated 5% due to the New Year holiday falling on a Saturday in 2022 versus a Wednesday in 2020. In addition, the Omicron variant continued to impact walk-in performance throughout the January period. Through the first three weeks of February 2022, constant center revenue growth was 24%, with walk-in revenue up 32%. Suffice to say, we are pleased with these results and believe they are testament to the quality work being done by our teams all across the country, as well as the strength of our positioning. Slide 8. We believe we are very well positioned to build upon the current momentum in our business for the following reasons. First, post-COVID, there's a growing positive sentiment in the U.S. for out-of-home entertainment. Main Event has consistently and significantly outperformed the category, leading to increased market share. Our brand positioning continues to resonate with our core consumer, as Main Event remains over-indexed on and highly rated by visitors with families versus our competition. Our unwavering commitment to delivering a world-class guest experience and our sharp focus on operational execution are driving best-in-class NPS. There continues to be additional headroom across growth levers, and we expect to see corporate and group event business begin to recover in the FY 2023 year and beyond. Slide 9. Furthermore, there continues to be tremendous white space for new center openings. We remain on track to open 4 new centers in FY 2022, 6-8 in FY 2023, and continue to target 8-10 new center openings in FY 2024 and beyond. Our first NCO in the FY 2022 year opened in September 2021 in Chesterfield, Missouri, and has consistently exceeded our expectations. Next up, Huntsville, Alabama, opening tomorrow, followed by Waco, Texas, and Tomball, Texas. We have ample liquidity to meet the needs of our business and fund near-term strategic priorities. Between our cash balance and our line of credit, we currently have over $90 million of available liquidity. In summary, we're extremely pleased with the performance of our business and continue to believe we are well positioned to further solidify our leadership position and build upon the current momentum in the business. We have an increasingly strong and resilient brand with plenty of white space to grow for many years to come. We're well capitalized from a liquidity and capital perspective, and we'll leverage this capital position to drive our new center growth strategy in the years to come. With that, I'll turn it over to Greg. Thanks, Chris, and good morning to everyone listening today. Starting on slide 11. In December, Alan Joyce said that this half had been the toughest since the pandemic began. From a Queensland perspective, I tend to agree. We were plagued by two COVID waves, Delta, which started in July, where the effects were felt from both a health perspective and through government restrictions. Our most popular interstate markets were locked down and borders across the nation were effectively closed for almost the entire half. Omicron, which was much closer to home to Queenslanders, with tens of thousands of people for the first time facing the real threat of illness and isolation. This, coupled with extremely onerous testing regimes, created a real barrier to demand in late December. While we were able to trade for most, but not all of the half, the business was essentially locked down economically for the entire half. Trading also meant that we incurred cost to operate the business. While variability in the cost base has been well and truly exploited, as you're all aware, there is a degree of fixed cost required, for instance, to care for our animals and importantly, to safely maintain and operate our attractions. These costs persist whether we have 10 or 10,000 guests in and around our properties. It's also important to note that the expenses incurred were for the full six months against the three and a half month expense incurrence over the prior year. We believe that the structural changes made over the last 24 months have recast the cost base, and the business is indeed sustainably more efficient on a like-for-like basis than we were pre-COVID. With the greatest respect to our southern friends, in some ways, it was as tough, if not tougher, here in Queensland from a business perspective. We had limited accessible markets. We were incurring cost to operate the business compared to being in expense hibernation due to lockdown, and with very little government support compared to what we've seen in 2020. While all of this was going on, we had our shoulder to the wheel on building the framework for the future, and I'm very proud that our team executed well on the initiatives that we've outlined of late. This can be seen in the solid performance out of the local market for the first half, and moreover, some very promising signs early in the new calendar year. On slide 12, we've outlined some of the highlights from the half. As always, that starts with our ongoing and pervasive focus on safety. Certainly from a rides and aquatic standpoint, but also in consideration of the other critical risks that present on large and diverse sites such as ours, and the day-to-day challenges applying COVID-related restrictions as and when they changed. I'll discuss some of the structural highlights in more detail shortly, but I would note the work that has been done to remove remnants of older closed attractions from the park and the ongoing enhancement of our plant integrity. The properties are certainly presenting much more professionally. We believe aesthetics imply safety and higher presentation standards lead our guests to feel more comfortable in our properties and to revisit or stay longer as a result. Lastly, we're through the worst of the post-closure major inspection work on our attractions and having a fully functioning fleet, as well as a laser focus on the key elements of the guest journey, which we've coined as Making the Dreamworld Difference, has led to exceptional guest feedback with NPS growing some 49 points over the half. Turning to slide 13 and revenue. For all the reasons I've outlined, the first half was extremely challenging. With the borders closed to interstate and international guests, in some months, I could count the number of tickets we sold into those markets literally on both hands. We did do, however, a great job of optimizing local visitation through our annual pass program, and we saw sales dollars in the first half increase by 40% through increases in volume and importantly, increases in net yield. For the first half, our annual pass sales are the highest they've been in over four years, and notably 84% higher than the pre-COVID first half of FY 2019. It's important to note that as annual pass has made up over 80% of our admissions mix for the first half, our revenue lags our sales quite considerably given the recognition requirements. In December, several factors stymied what we hoped to be a bumper start to the holidays. The Omicron variant took hold, and cases in Queensland went from 2 in early December to several thousand in mid-December and tens of thousands by early January. This led to subdued performance in the local market that would support us through the bulk of the first half. Pre-departure testing requirements created large queues in Sydney and Melbourne, while fifth-day testing requirements in Queensland created lines that we had not seen before across the state. Compounding this was poor weather across our most important periods, with rain from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve and 74% of our January days being rain-affected. With all that in mind, I think the performance from about the outline for January and what we are seeing in February is particularly promising. Again, I'm going to focus on sales and not revenue, and we believe that this is a more meaningful indication of business activity in the here and now, as opposed to the complexities of recognizing revenue over the duration required for some of our products. I mentioned the complete lack of visitation from the interstate markets in the first half. It was very pleasing to see them return in droves in January and February, with Victoria up 92% in January and 177% up in February, and New South Wales up 188% in January and 68% in February. Admission sales across all of our ticket types were up 75% in January and up 111% to date in February. For February so far, we're currently at the highest admission sales number that we've seen since 2016. The last few months are the first real signs of meaningful change in Australia since the start of the pandemic, and while they are very pleasing to see, it is early days. Turning to slide 14. I outlined our strategic initiatives last year, and I'm pleased to say that we have made steady progress on each. Firstly, and as always, safety is literally a daily focus in our organization. We have a pervasive safety culture and importantly, what I think are the most experienced and hands-on theme park engineering operational management teams in the country. They are bolstered by our safety team, many of whom come from Qantas and Virgin, and bring a high degree of critical thinking and rigor to our safety management systems. The adjustments we have made to the cost base are sustainable and come as a result of clearly considered decisions to find new efficiencies, which balance our desire to provide a valuable experience to the guests with the need to manage the financial performance of the organization. We're now seeing the results of this work with a seasonal trading plan for our water park, the reduction in older attraction infrastructure, the variabilized deployment of entertainment, along with our right-sized approach now to corporate costs such as IT and marketing, all proving to have a minimal impact on operations, but position us well to see improved fall through as revenue improves. In sales, we've achieved much in a relatively short space of time. Late last year, we successfully rolled out our much-improved website, which was designed fundamentally with a mobile-first mindset, something that is critical given most of our ticket sales transactions today are completed on a mobile phone. We also modified our ticketing architecture and spent a lot of time enhancing the path to purchase. We associate much of the performance seen in annual pass business to these changes, particularly with regard to moving the guest through the value chain and up to higher priced tickets. We've also completed a review on our product mix and distribution models to make sure we're serving up the right product to the right guest at the right time and via the right channel. Again, we believe the gains we saw out of Sydney and Melbourne were in part due to this work, and we believe acquisition costs for these sales is much more efficient compared to what we were seeing pre-COVID. Being brilliant at basics and ensuring that we deliver our own unique brand of service, as I mentioned, the Dreamworld difference, is fundamental to the recovery. Our NPS scores reflect the focus we've applied, but moreover, the detail in the comments behind those scores proves out that the key levers we are pulling to upweight the experience are working. We certainly moved the needle, but this is a never-ending question, something that each and every one of the team here are anxious to ensure that we get right each and every day. I'm particularly pleased with the performance in our in-park businesses with per capita January finishing 30% up on last year. Some of this was due to our ability to take some price, but moreover, thanks to enhancements in our F&B offer, which we've been deliberately testing through our major event program. We remain excited about the prospects for that part of the business, and we expect to continue to boost investment and effort into what we believe is an important aspect of the guest journey. Lastly, on the accommodation front, we believe and are of the view that adjacent accommodation offers a substantial value to the theme park business. While we've discontinued the non-binding agreement with Evolution Group, we continue to work on this concept and have a number of alternatives under active consideration. Turning to slide 15, I'm very pleased to say that the Steel Taipan attraction opened on schedule and is being very well received by our guests. On top of an outstanding construction effort, our team did a tremendous job to work through the requirements necessary to successfully gain design registration for this attraction. This is an extremely complex technical and it's a credit to our Director of Engineering, Adrian Summers, our Director of Operations, Michelle Erasmus, and our GM of Safety Systems, James Redgrove, and each of their respective teams. We're very lucky to have them in our organization. The successful construction, verification, and commissioning experience gives us, and I think our guests, a lot of confidence that we're able to execute significant projects and meet our dates. This is obviously vital as we evaluate our long-range capital program. To that end, we are very well advanced on future attraction pipeline planning, but we're not ready to make any announcements at this time. I've spoken at length about our intention to create a calendar of repeatable and marquee events, as well as a shorter-term activation program that adds value to our existing parks and provides another reason for our domestic tourists to visit. Slide 16 goes some way to illustrating the progress that we've made in that regard. We saw record performance at our existing Winterfest and Happy Halloween events, with the strongest demand seen since their inception, and we expect this to sustain in FY 2023. We're also very pleased with the performance of our newly added Spring County Fair event, Dreamworld Fun Run, and Waitangi Weekend activations, and these will become a fixture in our annual calendar moving forward. We continue to look for opportunities to add new activations at the right time to drive visitation, taking methodical approach to ensuring wholesome experiences at an appropriate level of investment. Lastly, the team have been feverishly working on a new marquee event for Easter, a concept that we've been deliberating on for over a year now. While I can't give any details on this today, we intend to make an announcement in March, so keep an eye out on this space. In summary, on the slide 17, despite the half being particularly difficult from a trading perspective, we saw glimpses of great performance when opportunities arose, particularly in the school holiday periods. We believe that we have now addressed many of the fundamental aspects in the business. We've retained a talented, passionate, and I think world-class executive management team, and they are laser focused on providing a safe, enjoyable experience for our guests. We've made quality decisions to get the cost base in order, and we think these changes are sustainable to support the business as revenue grows. The successful on-time opening of Steel Taipan also gives us tremendous confidence in our ability to manage major capital projects in a complex regulatory landscape, and this bodes well as we evaluate our future attraction program. We are very happy with the guest reaction and commercial performance of our event and activation programs. We're putting on events that our guests absolutely look forward to, and importantly do with the end in mind for an appropriate level of investment. We believe we're on the right track, and as we stated in our presentation, our guests think so too. Our NPS results indicate this, and despite Omicron, testing challenges and poor weather, we've seen incremental improvements since December with January and February trading meaningfully up on the prior periods. I'd like to say my personal thanks to the entire team for their ongoing commitment and dedication. I'll now hand back over to Darin. Thank you very much. Thanks, Greg. I'll touch on just a few highlights over the next few slides, and then we'll open up the line to Q&A. On slide 19, net debt for the group was AUD 119.4 million as of 28 December 2021. This is an increase of AUD 37.8 million from 29 June 2021, largely reflecting incremental borrowing by the Australian business pursuant to the QTC loan, as well as capital spend on several new center openings which are in progress at Main Event. Operating cash flows were strong at over AUD 52 million during the first half of FY 2022. Turning to slide 20, the group has a cash balance of AUD 110 million as of December 2021, and it is comprised of approximately AUD 18 million and $92 million of cash available to the Australian and US businesses respectively. Furthermore, there is a $25 million undrawn revolving credit facility available to the U.S. business, as well as an AUD 24 million capacity available to the Australian business through the QTC loan. Given the ongoing strength and performance, the U.S. business remains well capitalized and in a good position in terms of covenant compliance as well as supporting its growth plans in the near term. Lastly, the board has decided not to declare an interim dividend for FY 2022 in view of ongoing uncertainty in the current environment and the board's previously stated intention to continue to invest in the Main Event and theme parks and attractions businesses. Finally, on slide 21, as noted previously, the group has taken its recurring cost base of over AUD 16 million to a run rate of approximately AUD 6 million over the past two years due to significant efforts to permanently reduce the cost structure given the changes to the business. The first half of FY 2022 was unfavorably impacted by a challenging insurance market, which drove most of the AUD 0.9 million increase from the prior year. This concludes our prepared remarks, and with that, we'll now open the call to take questions. Thank you, Darin. All questions will be directed to me in the first instance, and then I will allocate the question as circumstances require. Our first question comes from Sam Teeger with Citi. You may now go ahead. Oh, hi, Gary. Thanks for taking the question. Just like to talk a bit about Main Event and the RedBird partnership. Can you talk about how the relationship has evolved? In this result, are there any kind of tangible benefits that Main Event receives from RedBird? To date, has the partnership just been more of a financial contribution at this point in time? Thank you, Sam. RedBird have been a very good partner and have introduced Main Event to a number of their investee companies and relationships and work continues on those fronts. As and when we're in a position to comment on any initiatives that may arise, we will do so. All right. Sure. Within Main Event, what's the expectations, you know, for comps as we move throughout the second half? Appreciate you'll be starting to cycle some bigger numbers from April to June, which reflected some pent-up demand. Do you guys think comps can continue to grow? I'll best ask Chris to address that question. Yeah. Then I will pass it over to Darin just in terms of, you know, the to provide some commentary on what our guidance is, and then I can add some color commentary after that. Go ahead, Darin. Yeah, sure. I believe the short answer is we are not providing any guidance, Sam, on our centers performance moving forward. You know, I think hopefully, you know, the chart on slide seven provides a bit of perspective, and then again, Chris can add some color. But you know, hopefully the long-term trend of our same-store sales performance, as well as you know, how robust our walk-in performance has been, you know, is a good indicator of the extent that we've had this performance. But we're not gonna be providing specific guidance. This is Chris, just to add some additional commentary. You know, the first thing, Sam, is you mentioned cycling over some more difficult numbers. Just as a reminder, when we report on our comps, we're comparing. It's a two-year comp, so we're comparing our current year performance, FY 2022, to our FY 2020 year, pre-pandemic numbers. Just keep that in mind. The other thing I'll tell you is when you look at slide 7, you look at our sales performance, I believe we effectively described December and January, where we had some holiday mismatches and then had really difficult corporate event business. Most of our corporate event business is in the month of December. Eliminating that noise, what you'll see is just real, you know, consistent strength in our business. We've had just consistently outperformed where we were pre-COVID since March, and that momentum does not appear to be subsiding. If you look at the last three weeks of February, we're, you know, you can see the numbers up 24% and total comp store sales are up 32% for walk-ins. We're very, very pleased with the momentum in our business, and particularly just the consistency of that momentum since March. Right. Just thinking about the cost base in Main Event in the second half compared to the first half, just keen for any comments on how you're navigating wage inflation right now and if there's anything else kind of evolving in that cost base which we should be considering? Yep. Gary, you're okay if I just keep going? Yeah. Good. It's Chris, perhaps before you tackle that, just Sam, to round out that, excuse me, last question. We have called out continuing soft corporate and group performance, which, as you're aware, was a material contributor to revenues in pre-pandemic times. Chris, if you can, respond. Yeah. Sure. With respect to wage inflation, you know, I'll tell you a couple things. One, you know, given the strength in our comp store sales and the strength of this business model, as you know, there's tremendous operating leverage. You know, our operating leverage is anywhere from 60, could be as high as 70%. The growth that we're seeing in the business has, you know, been the best medicine against rising wages. With that said, it is a reality of the business. It's a reality of, you know, all multi-unit businesses here in the U.S., as we are seeing wage inflation. We believe that we're managing it better than most. The best way of handling it is, one, you know, to retain, you know, to manage turnover so you retain your staff, and so you can offset it just with lower training costs. Secondly, delivering on a great guest experience. Our NPS scores are 13 points higher than where we were pre-COVID. We know that we continue to operate at a very high level. We keep track of our hourly workforce on how we're doing against our pars every single week, and we've consistently been in the high 90% range. Given the labor shortage here across the U.S., we've been able to keep our centers staffed. We're not necessarily dealing with wage pressure just with price increases. What we're trying to deal with is just with, you know, executing at a really high level, keeping the team members engaged, and growing our top line. Because when we know we grow our top line, we'll flow the dollars to the bottom line. At this point in time, we haven't taken pricing. So because there's so much strength in the numbers since March, we don't feel like it makes sense at this point in time to raise prices. But certainly as we go forward in the FY 2023 year and beyond, you know, that is a lever that we can pull. We believe that heading into the FY 2023 year, we actually have more capacity for a price increase than we probably have had in the past two, three years. That's a lever that we'll be able to pull next year to help offset some of the ongoing wage pressure. Thanks very much, Chris. Just one last one, if I can, on theme parks. Just like to understand how you guys are thinking about future ride investment, whether the right thing to do is a family ride versus a thrill ride. Just conscious that the Tower of Terror was very popular with the local market. Rick, could you take that? Yeah, absolutely. Hi, Sam. Look, Sam, we feel strongly that the family business is an area that we're slightly deficient in. Obviously, when we think about capital and those are probably the biggest decisions we make in the organization outside of safety decisions. We take a very comprehensive decision-making model to that. A lot of our analysis shows that our family segment in terms of our ride mix has still got opportunity to grow in terms of potential theoretical capacity. We think Steel Taipan's really added, I think, in terms of the thrill market at this point in time. We also think that there's probably a longer halo effect, if you will, from family attractions. They get ridden for longer. If you think about, you know, thrill, it's obviously very, very tight and narrow in terms of the market and doesn't have the same level of re-ridership that we typically see out of a family attraction. A lot of that is in our thinking. Obviously, we've got an open mind around all of that, but certainly our analysis to date suggests that we're very much thinking about what's next in the family space. Got it. Thanks, Greg. Our next question comes from Nick McGarrigle with Barrenjoey. You may now go ahead. Hi, team. Thanks for taking questions. I was just curious about the December negative comp sales growth, and just if you can quantify maybe the impact that that might have had in terms of EBITDA for that month versus maybe what you were running at in October and November, which looked very strong. Darin, will you take that? Yeah, sure. Yeah. We call out for the month of December that we simply had an estimated 22 percentage points of pressure coming from the holiday mismatch, you know, as well as the corporate group business. You know, we didn't attempt to quantify what sort of impact that Omicron had. But certainly that had some impact as well between those two periods. Broadly, your question in terms of the EBITDA impact, I would say approximately AUD 3.5 million on that 22% impact. You know, approximately a 5 million-6 million dollar sort of revenue impact with flow through. You know, it could be AUD three and a half million to AUD four million, would be my estimate. Absent that sort of Omicron impact on the consumer sentiment to get out and about, you could have had a sort of circa 46 odd million dollar underlying EBITDA in Mandurah. I think that's right, yeah. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for answering that. I was just keen to dig in also to Chesterfield, and obviously that's a new opening, sort of, probably one of the first handful of clubs that Chris has been able to design and from the very start and obviously evolve the new model. Can you just talk about the performance of that club since it opened, and what that gives you in terms of either confidence or learnings for the future club openings in the next half year and beyond? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're very pleased with our performance to date. It has consistently exceeded our expectations. As we said in our prepared remarks, it's proven that when we're in the right market, and we have the right density, we have visibility, good ingress, egress, and there's very good retail gravity nearby, that we're gonna do well. We are in fact doing very well. It's also a market with considerable corporate demand. So we believe that there's even more upside for that site once corporate business returns, which we expect will start to recover in our next fiscal year. You know, we've opened a number of sites. Our team now has opened a number of sites, and so far, you know, we have done very well. All the sites that we've opened have exceeded our expectations. This is not the first, but it's one of many, and we're very pleased. Huntsville, Alabama, coming up. As I said, we open that one tomorrow. That one has a slightly improved design that we've changed going forward, just trying to continue this never-ending quest of always reaching further, doing more for our guests. As we continue to refine our model, you know, we'll continue to tweak some of the floor layout and things of that nature just to allow us to get more utility out of the square footage, do a better job taking care of guests, managing guest flow as guests migrate from one venue to the next. We've made a few design changes going forward that'll first be reflected in the Huntsville location. Cool. Maybe also just a question. There's obviously quite a bit of CapEx embedded in the first half. Obviously, a lot of that relates to centers that are yet to open. Can you talk through, Gary, potentially how the RedBird option adjusts for that investment that you're making as well as the immaturity of some of the new site centers that you're opening? I'll ask Darin to respond with essentially very headline perspective on those points. Yeah. The short answer, two things. Any center that has opened but is not yet open for a full year at the time of the option exercise, there is a run rate adjustment that would be contemplated in the cost of what the option exercise is. If there's capital spent for a center not yet open, then there's a dollar for dollar add back in terms of capital spent. Hope that makes sense. Yeah, that's very clear. The option obviously is struck at 9x trailing 12-month EBITDA, circa, you know, FY 2022. There's an adjustment item there for those new centers that you're opening during the year, plus the capital that you might have deployed in the intervening period. Yep, exactly. That's great. I might let other people ask questions, and if there's none, we'll jump back in the queue. Our next question comes from Allan Franklin with Canaccord Genuity. You may now go ahead. Yeah. Morning, everybody. Thanks for taking the time and the opportunity to ask questions. Just yeah interested in a couple of your peers in the U.S. and just in terms of a couple of announcements they have made recently, specifically with Dave & Buster's. I mean, I appreciate there's a fair bit going on at the management team level, but looks like they have you know new activation agreements with the new audience that they're hopeful to obviously shift the narrative that probably pushes them further away from your offering, and they're also pushing towards smaller center footprints. Just any sort of commentary you can sort of provide in terms of how you're feeling about your offering relative to the market and market changes. Also just on that center footprint, just to clarify, you're still looking at, you know, big boxes for the sort of sites rolling forward into the 2023, 2024. No sort of change to the footprint size, I guess. I might ask Chris just to provide a very general overview. Yeah, sure. Well, I guess the thing I'll tell you is, I mean, we are very happy with our performance relative to Dave & Buster's. We've consistently outperformed. We were outperforming Dave & Buster's before the pandemic by a wide margin. What we've seen post pandemic is that that gap has just continued to widen. We feel very good about what we're doing, our positioning relative to theirs. We feel exceptionally good about our level of execution relative to theirs. You know, and we're very pleased with the results. We keep an eye on you know, everything that they're working on. You know, I think that the marketing that they're doing right now is very good for their brand. I think, you know, the marketing that we're doing is exceptionally good for ours. Our positioning is different than theirs. The further that we define ours against theirs and they do the same, then it's just gonna, you know, create more opportunities for us. We feel very good about our results. In terms of the size of footprint, you know, we're having a lot of success with our units right now. We're getting great returns. You know, there's ample white space to continue to, you know, grow our business. You know, we're not looking to fix something that's not working. What we have right now is getting a great return, and we think that there's a lot of upside in our business, and we like having the excess. We like having, you know, capacity across 50,000 sq ft to deliver a very unique experience in the market. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Maybe just a follow on to that. I know with your discussion around inflation, to what extent are you sort of seeing any inflation impacts on the new centers and/or to any extent, have you noticed impacts on timing the new center rollouts as a result of COVID impacts? Darin, will you take that? Yeah, sure. So the answer is yes. We're seeing the impact as everyone is, you know, across the board. You know, there's certain items, steel, roofing materials, things like that have been really long lead time. I'll say our development real estate team has done a fantastic job of staying on top of that. There's some items we made commitments on earlier in the process than normal to secure the ability to have that, to get these things open on time. So far we've done a great job managing to our timetable. But you know, there are some things that are outside of our control that you know, we're trying our best to manage through. I think similar to what you're seeing with, you know, food, commodities and things of that nature, you know, there's gonna be a bit of inflationary pressures that we think is gonna be short-lived. Just a question of how short-lived it is. So far we've done a good job managing to our timetable and haven't had to make any significant adjustments to opening dates. No, perfect. Thank you. Perhaps just one on the theme parks. Greg, just trying to get a read through in terms of how to think about revenue per attendance and the sort of noise in the mix. I mean, it feels like there's obviously a strong upward trend and trajectory in the attendance, but I guess that's only really capturing the Queensland dynamic. Just in terms of how, you know, if you can comment in terms of how you might be thinking about propensity to spend in the general populace. How, you know, how sort of price points and/or average price points might be looking, you know, relative to pre-pandemic. Yeah. Thanks, Alan. Good question. You're right. The mix at the moment or for the first half particularly is almost, and I think I outlined it was, you know, over 80% of the first half was annual passes. Obviously the face value of that ticket is obviously somewhat higher than our other pass products. I can say at a high level, and I probably don't wanna go into specifics about the ticketing mix in too much detail other than to say that if I look at our single-day mix, and if I look at our multi-day product, all of those tickets are seeing yield growth. We believe that there's, you know, potential there to do even more over time, because we believe that the typical proponent of those particular tickets are domestic tourists, and they have, in our view and historical, you know, reviews of our performance, a higher propensity to spend than the local market. We do believe that is moving in the right direction. I think similarly, as international returns, you know, that is a consideration for us, and I think for the entire industry really as to how we take that business in moving forward. I think the days of, you know, really just cheapest chips entries for international guests and the dilution effect that has on yield is something that, you know, we don't feel that we wanna get back to doing all that kind of stuff again. If I look at in-park, you know, I kind of outlined what we've seen in January in terms of per caps and 30% up in terms of our per cap space. As I outlined, some of that was price, and we certainly thought there was an opportunity to take, you know, opportunities where we thought that was appropriate. It's really more about innovation in the menu than anything else. Again, I've been quite studious of what's happening with Chris and Darren at Main Event. You know, we've really tried to balance just shooting for price in and of itself. It's a very blunt weapon. We've taken it where we think it's appropriate, but you know, we're much more focused on delivering a good experience and, you know, again, incremental yield growth as opposed to just you know, major increases in price without too much consideration of the impact. Yeah, great. Helpful. Thank you. Okay. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Our next question will come from Brian Han with Morningstar. You may now go ahead. Thank you. Can you please update us on your thinking about what the sustainable margin could be for Main Event longer term? Sorry, Brian, could you repeat? The sustainable what? Sustainable margin, what it could be for Main Event longer term? We're not going to provide guidance per se, but I'll ask Darin to respond about his views of the business. We've historically pre-COVID discussed 20% consolidated margins for the business. You know, certainly with where the business is performing, we believe margins at and above that level are very sustainable and is what we would expect. I would say 20% plus is where we think our margin should ultimately settle in. Okay. Just. Brian, just to confirm that those are aspirational targets. They're not provided by way of guidance. Of course, Gary. Of course. Just on Main Event, you gentlemen mentioned a few times that corporate and group bookings are still sort of very soft. When you look at other industries like travel, corporate, especially in the U.S., seems like things are almost back to normal. Just wondering why you think those corporates or group bookings are not recovering as much for Main Event. Darin, would you like to take that one? Yeah, I mean, one main reason is the lack of a sponsor, either at a corporate group level, group meaning a school, a church, some other civic organization. There's still a very strong hesitancy to sponsor an event and bring a bunch of people together. It's been the longest tail in the recovery, and it's consistent with, you know, most of the other consumer brands out there, be it Topgolf, be it Dave & Buster's. Everyone's continuing to have struggled with that over the last two years. The overall participants that would be part of that are more than happy because they're our walk-in guests and have shown their strong willingness to trade. But it's largely until there's a- We think just a sort of normalized approach to the virus that these sponsors are gonna feel comfortable, you know, booking more. Given that there's been pent-up demand on that side, you know, we're not speculating as to when it's gonna return, but I think when that window opens, you know, we're gonna be prepared to capture our fair share of that revenue. Okay. Just lastly, Gary, hopefully you'll let this through to Greg, but just on theme parks, can you please share with us what were the main sticking points that led to the deal with Evolution Group falling through? Greg, would you like to tackle that at a high level? Yeah, sure, Gary. Look, I think Brian at a very high level, great partner and have good experience in terms of what we were looking to do, but we just couldn't get the deal to work for us, as much as we would've liked it to be. You know, I think the concept was right, but we just couldn't come to an agreement that made enough sense for us to proceed. We see, I think, opportunity there, with other players out there to look at it, hence the reason that we wanna just take a bit more time to get it right. Okay. Thanks, gentlemen. Our next question is coming from Roger Coleman with Pax Participations Limited. You may now go ahead. I've got a question on the flow-through rate for the first half of 43%. At the annual results release presentation, and yet again through this conference, the US team mentioned that the flow-through rate should be in excess of 60%. Now, what happened in this first half? If I add back a 60% rate to the 43% flow-through, your margin should be well into the 30% in other circumstances. Could you just give us some color on why we got 43% given the comments of 60%+ on flow-through? Thanks, Roger. Darin, are you able to respond? Yeah, a couple things. First of all, some of the incremental revenue coming in is new center revenue, and it's not gonna have as much of a flow-through, just given the fact that you're bringing in a bunch of fixed costs. That revenue is not gonna come through at that level of flow-through, number one. Secondly, there's a handful of items that are applying some additional cost pressure. You know, one is increased incentive compensation at the field level, at the support center, just based on how the business is performing. You know, we had a target set. There's incremental costs there that are not reflective of, you know, the underlying full-year sort of run rate. There's some incremental costs also coming in from some marketing spend that we've invested in. Sorry. I just want to get- Additional- Sorry. I just wanna cut to the chase. Are we gonna get to a 60% drop-through rate, or are we permanently stuck at mid-40s%? No, absolutely not. Okay. No, our blow-through rate has consistently for years been, you know, 60%-70%. You just have to look at the component of what's that revenue coming in when you're looking at consolidated results. Normally first year A little more specific. Sorry. First year openings are normally excessively good, and then it normalizes. That's not the excuse for the 43% in the first half. No, absolutely not. They're not at a 70% margin either. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I was walking you through the components. Right. I do wanna move on to CapEx, right? Is most people used to budget around $9 million-$10 million of net CapEx ex sales at leaseback. You know, the exclusive property. In the inflation rate in America now, should we move that up to $11 million-$12 million per center or leave it at $10 million? Roger, just to clarify, using U.S. dollars or AUD? U.S. dollars. Okay. Darren? Yeah. I'd say here in the short run, you know, if you were to consider additional AUD 1 million, then that's fair. We do have flexibility to get additional funding as well from our partners. That net cost is something that we can also manage as well through our proceeds. Right. Okay, I wanna move on to Greg, quick. Thank you very much. Greg, you there? On those February ticket sales up to 22nd, which is best in 2016, right? You there? Yes. Yeah, Roger, just put the question and then Greg will respond. Right. Greg, 2016 had 2.4 million attendances and a 32% EBITDA margin. Has this center now got the capability of repeating that again, probably in FY 2023 with normalized weather? Roger, I think it's just too early for us to make any of those kind of predictions around guidance. Obviously, we're very aspirational to return the business, firstly, to break even and then towards the historical performance of the business. I would say, the margins that were achieved pre-incident, I don't expect that we'll achieve those kind of margins into the future. I think the cost of compliance, and I think our view from the board down around commitment of expenditure to safety is just very different from what was in the organization before. Look, absolutely want to get back to those kind of numbers, Roger, 100%. As I said in the prepared remarks, it really is just very early days, and so we're certainly very excited about the numbers, but it's, you know, it's a couple of months of good performance so far. As much as I wanna see it, I'm sure you also do as well with a bit of consistency in those numbers over the next half. Yes, of course I would agree with that. I'm not a short seller. Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot. That's it from me. Thanks, Roger. Our next question comes from Allan Franklin with Canaccord Genuity. You may now go ahead. Yeah, hi, guys. Sorry, scrap that question. Call this into uptime. Leave that off. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Dr. Weiss for closing remarks. Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone on the call, and also particularly like to thank my colleagues who've joined me on the call, and once again to express my appreciation and the board's appreciation for the great contribution that our teams at Main Event and Theme Parks are doing to progress the recovery of Ardent. Still with the challenges of the pandemic with us, but hopefully abating. Thank you all, very much.