In our last story about the blowout opening of the Wizard of Oz at Sphere in Las Vegas, we promised to come back to the story with next week’s results and Wow! did it perform strongly. Based upon observed visits and a $200 average ticket cost, we estimate that attendance for the Thursday – Sunday period (10 showings) increased by 60% to 72K tickets and $15M in box office. In movies, the WoW decay in box office is typically 50%.

A retooled Wizard of Oz at Sphere in Las Vegas did around $9.3M in box office receipts for the last Thursday – Sunday period; it’s second weekend. We base the estimate on observed visits of 46K for the four-day period and a seat price of $200 per showing. There are two showings Monday – Thursday and four on Saturday and Sunday. This second weekend benefited from all of the positive buzz after the opening weekend.

Well for the non-Disney-s and -Universals of theme parks, the season ended on a soft note. Disney’s marketing machine and the new Universal Epic Universe park had just too much of a pull. Separately, given our “thrifty K-shaped consumer-economy” cruise as a better value continues to take market share (third season in a row). The way we track market share is shown in the table. Personal Consumption Expenditures on “Fun” has outpaced Amusement Parks + Camping spending each month of the summer.

As the data implied, Caesars Entertainment’s Las Vegas segment results were down for Q2, including table drop falling -5%, food & beverage down -6%, other down -9% (which is last year’s strong concert programming), hotel occupancy down -190 bps, and EBITDA down -9%. That said, the higher-end (we put Caesar’s Palace in that category) pulled higher going through June, as shown in the chart below. (We filter for >1 hour visits when trying to estimate hotel and casino revenue.

Avis’ Q2 results allow for a glimpse into travel trends during this current period of softer demand, especially for big-ticket travel like Vegas and destination resorts . Rental Days for Avis’ Americas segment increased by +1% and rate fell by -2%. The volume increase drove an improvement in the fleet utilization by 50bps to 70.7%. That, combined with lower fleet unit cost (-14%), led to a strong increase in EBITDA (+18%).

The Fed’s latest Beige Book was released last week; the Atlanta district’s comments read, “Travel and tourism activity grew modestly, on balance, since the previous report [early June]… Group bookings for some properties did not meet expectations as international travel to the U.S. from Canada, Asia, and Europe, continued to slow. Demand for cruises rebounded from lows earlier this year.” These observations align with our story that Universal’s new Epic Universe theme park hasn’t yet lifted the Orlando Market.

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights At a time when many are concerned about a recession and a cutback in consumer spending, Disney once again demonstrated that it is a special place in consumers’ lives and an exceptional business. Domestic park attendance inflected by +300bps to +1% growth. Advan data in the table below shows that the Orlando parks, especially Magic Kingdom, drove the acceleration as hurricanes weren’t disruptive in the period, like the prior quarter.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented changes across various industries, with the movie theater industry facing significant disruptions. After prolonged closures, new safety regulations, and the rapid rise of streaming platforms, theaters had to adapt to survive. Now, as we navigate 2024, let’s explore how movie theater attendance in the United States is faring in comparison to pre-pandemic levels and assess year-over-year trends. Despite the gradual return of audiences, the numbers show that attendance is still below pre-pandemic levels.

The necessarily misnamed “Euro 2020”, one of the largest soccer competitions worldwide, had to be postponed until June 2021 due to pandemic restrictions. The winner of the European Championship was Italy after beating England 3-2 in the final on penalties. Webley Stadium in London hosted the semi-finals as well as the final on 7/6, 7/7 and 7/11 respectively. We employed our international data to see whether the European sporting events are heading back to normality.

Update: well, we did not party like 2019… There were only 22,500 spectators in the Last Row party on Friday. And, per Penske’s directions, attendance was 142,000 (tickets were limited to about 135,000, plus all the support staff for the race). Although we’re certain Helio isn’t exactly disappointed about the reduced purse size. Here is to a full-on 2022! Indianapolis 500 is here and this year with proper spectators allowed!