Q1 Earnings Call Highlights

Highlights from Cedar Fair’s first quarter earnings call, which took place earlier today.

Listen to replay of call

Read transcript

• Company has alway been strong at rides and attractions. Over the past two years, company has started to apply the same quality level commitment to other lines of business. Examples include the Hotel Breakers project as well as improvements in retail and catering.
• The new corporate website will play an important role in communicating Cedar Fair to partners, investors, vendors and future employees.
• Company is labeling the next generation of our strategic plan as FUNforward 2.0. The plan is made up of five themes expected to drive growth to 2018.
• One: Focus on enhancing the guest experience in an effort to deliver a strong price value proposition targeting a quality family oriented audience. This includes a more consistent approach to early season value pricing and a multiyear commitment to marketing campaigns pushing May and June as both a great value and a great experience.
• Two: Focus on growing advanced purchase commitments for all of the products the company offers.
• Three: Further embrace digital technology in all aspects of the business. As part of this initiative, Ouimet mentioned the company’s “Amusement Dark” rides, enhanced mobile experience, FunTV, and park-wide Wi-Fi.
• A new mobile app solution will be first rolled out at Kings Island and Carowinds, with a broader rollout in the future. The new platform will include features such as ride wait times, way finding, and show times.
• With the expiration of previous photo imaging contracts in 2015, the company will launch a new technologically advanced in-park photo solution next year.
• Four: Maximizing market potential of each park to discipline capital and operating initiative.
• Five: Pursue complementary development adjacent to parks.

I know it's been said over and over, but it certainly feels as if the future of this company is in solid hands with good vision and direction.

Just one hope; when you make your mobile apps, Cedar Fair, can you please include Windows phones in your plans? Unlike those pesky Disney folks...

Walt said:

• With the expiration of previous photo imaging contracts in 2015, the company will launch a new technologically advanced in-park photo solution next year.

What are they talking about? On-ride photos?

Kevinj said:

Just one hope; when you make your mobile apps, Cedar Fair, can you please include Windows phones in your plans? Unlike those pesky Disney folks...

That's a relatively tiny market to create an app for. However, isn't Windows Phone rumored to support Android apps in the future?

I like the sound of "complementary developments adjacent to parks". Could easily be interpreted as that Downtown Disney-ish boardwalk area we've been wanting at CP for years. Also could mean they might finally do something with the old Lion Country Safari land at Kings Island that's been sitting fallow for more than 20 years now.

djDaemon said:

Kevinj said:

Just one hope; when you make your mobile apps, Cedar Fair, can you please include Windows phones in your plans? Unlike those pesky Disney folks...

That's a relatively tiny market to create an app for. However, isn't Windows Phone rumored to support Android apps in the future?

Well, I had no idea windows-phone users were a small market. Believe it or not my Nokia Lumia is the first "smartphone" I have ever owned so I concede ignorance in that department.

And if Windows phones do start supporting Android apps in the near future, that's good news.

djDaemon said:

What are they talking about? On-ride photos?

I would venture a guess that they are talking about a photo-pass type system like Disney. Your "front gate" photographers and possibly on-ride photos all tied together and accessible on-line. I haven't bought a photo inside the park in probably 20 years but I am guessing its still Kodak (or Kamans) taking the photos and printing them off later in the day?

If that's the case, it's about time. I've purchased a "front gate" photo in the last 5 years (or so), and I do think it was still Kodak. Does Disney's system allow the purchase of digital copies that can be shared online? Seems like that would be much more in line with modern tastes.

Kevinj said:
And if Windows phones do start supporting Android apps in the near future, that's good news.

After digging a bit, it turns out that MS has new SDKs that allow porting of apps from various sources to Windows Phone with "minimal work". So hopefully this means better support for Windows Phone.

Although the transcription is a little goofy, I thought this was interesting:

Matt Ouimet - President and Chief Executive Officer

And then Tim, this is Matt. Good morning. As to your other question about the potential of other programs, season pass programs, we have done a considerable amount of work. The ethic to our customer base and so I don’t want to go into details today about what the renewal program that will be. But at this point in time, you can anticipate that our path with be a little different than maybe others are doing in the industry, because I think our consumer base is different. So we are excited about the program will roll out this fall and I’ll lead with that for this call.

djDaemon said:

After digging a bit, it turns out that MS has new SDKs that allow porting of apps from various sources to Windows Phone with "minimal work". So hopefully this means better support for Windows Phone.

Yes, they announced yesterday at //BUILD that they will apparently be able to run Android apps in a container on all Windows 10 devices (phones, tablets and desktops), and the source iOS code written in Objective-C can be ported with little effort to compile to a Windows binary.

djDaemon said:
Does Disney's system allow the purchase of digital copies that can be shared online? Seems like that would be much more in line with modern tastes.

I believe so. I have only ever used Photo Pass once and I got the photo for free so I don't know if the way I went about getting the photo was different from others. I got an onride photo from Tower of Terror and it came with the digital copy online that I could use or share however I wanted. I could also send the link to retrieve the photo to others in my group.

As for getting your picture taken around the parks and on rides, I am sure with the packages you have to pick from you can do as you wish with the photos.

You can (could last year anyway) buy a day pass and have unlimited photos from unlimited rides sent to an email address. It was a good deal for a family to get pictures of everyone. Not sure if that included the entry photos, as I didn't check.

Also, for things like slingshot, ripcord, etc., they sold thumb drives with the experience on it.

Park-Wide Wi-Fi?

Yes... Yes... Please yes...

Last year I'd toss a cheap tablet in one of the lockers. 90% of my day could be spent riding roller coasters, but occasionally I'd have to respond to an urgent email or do a phone meeting.

The thing that sucked was schelpping my way back to Starbucks to get a solid Wi-Fi connection.

Granted... Finding a "less noisy" area of the park would still be a challenge, but at least I wouldn't be limited to Starbucks.

Supporting Android apps on Windows Phone 10 will be the kiss of death for Windows Phone. No one will go to the trouble of writing a native Windows Phone app if Android apps can run in a runtime container. Microsoft might as well scrap Windows phone and make sure they have first class Android apps for all their services such as Office Mobile and Bing to allow a Microsoft mobile presence.

I always felt like Windows Phone was DOA since it came out. Most major apps I see advertised are for iOS or Android, not so much for the other minor OS's. I just think there isn't much of a market outside of those 2 mobile OS's for developers to justify the time and effort developing on those platforms. I think Microsoft allowing Android apps to run on their phone is their way of accepting defeat in the mobile market while allowing those who bought those phones to get their use out of them until the end of their contract.

It's a damn shame, because some of that Lumia hardware has been absolutely fantastic.

Pete said:

No one will go to the trouble of writing a native Windows Phone app if Android apps can run in a runtime container.

According to the article I linked to, the SDKs make it very easy to port Android and iOS apps to Windows Phone. And this article from The Verge goes into greater detail. It doesn't look like the non-native apps will be running in a container (assuming I understand what they're saying), but will make the work to port very minimal.

If it takes a minimal amount of work to port an app, developers would be stupid not to do so. Because even though Windows Phone has a minuscule percentage of market share, that's still 30+ million potential customers.

Pete said:

Supporting Android apps on Windows Phone 10 will be the kiss of death for Windows Phone. No one will go to the trouble of writing a native Windows Phone app if Android apps can run in a runtime container.

I don't think you're seeing the potential or the point. First you get some of the special sauce (sharing API's, consistent in-app purchases, etc.) almost for free. More to the point though, Windows 10 is Windows 10, whether it's on a phone, a tablet, a desktop or Xbox. The idea that you can build once and reach all of those audiences is pretty compelling. Brandon is right... it's still 30 million customers (most of them non-US), but since they're giving W10 away, that's going to be an enormous audience very fast.