Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Coast Entertainment Holdings fiscal year 2024 half-year financial results. All participants are in a 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 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Dr. Gary Weiss, chairman. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining this presentation on the half-year results for Coast Entertainment Holdings. I'm joined on this call by our Chief Executive Officer, Greg Yong, and by our Chief Financial Officer, José de Sacadura. We're also joined on the call by Chris Todd, the Company Secretary of Coast. I'll make some preliminary remarks, and then I'll hand over to José and Greg, respectively, to take you through specific items of the release. Let me just begin by highlighting a number of features impacting this half-year and talk just very briefly about the start of the second half. Put simply, as will appear from the releases lodged today at the ASX, for the first half, we saw visitation growth of 6.5%, ticket sales up 11.8%, the highest since the first half of 2016.
Revenue of AUD 43.5 million was broadly in line with prior period. Noticeably, deferred revenue increased AUD 3.2 million, or 27.8%, compared to December 2022 as a result of higher annual pass sales. Theme parks and attractions, EBITDA excluding specific items, remained positive at AUD 3.1 million. Group EBITDA excluding specific items, broadly in line with prior period, despite economic headwinds weighing on consumer discretionary spending, ongoing cost pressures, and significant construction activity at Dreamworld throughout the period. As foreshadowed, we commissioned an independent valuation of SkyPoint with fair value assessed to be approximately AUD 37 million and has been advised to the market that increment in value above book value will not be recorded through the company's financial statements. Pleasingly, we saw the conclusion of the shareholder class action, the last legacy item remaining from the tragedy in 2016, which involved a net cash settlement of AUD 4 million paid in February of 2024.
At balance state, solid balance sheet with cash of AUD 106.4 million. Since that time, those cash balances have been augmented by an additional AUD 11.9 million received from Dave & Buster's as part of the sale proceeds. On-market share buyback is ongoing with 20 million shares purchased in the first half of 2024 at a cost of AUD 8.9 million. Finally, before turning over to José and Greg, I just want to talk very briefly about trends and attendances. As you will note from our release, December attendance was trending very well, up 22.9% prior to the unfortunate Christmas Day storm. Greg, in particular, will talk about the weather challenges that we faced up at Dreamworld and WhiteWater World during the month of January. But notwithstanding the weather challenges, January attendances were up 8.9% on prior period.
Finally, to note in the first three weeks of February, pleasingly, we're seeing attendance up approximately 40% over prior period. With those introductory remarks, I'll now ask José to take you through some of the financial highlights of the first half's results.
Thank you, Gary. Good morning and welcome to everyone joining us today. I think it's fair to say that the last few months have made for a fairly tough trading environment for many leisure, retail, and consumer-facing businesses. Continuing high inflation and further interest rate rises have created cost of living pressures for many. In November, the RBA again raised its cash rate, taking it to 4.35%, which is the highest in 12 years. These factors have increasingly weighed on consumer discretionary spending, and we've begun to see some examples of companies reporting a downturn in trading performance. South East Queensland has also faced added challenges brought by the two severe storms which swept through the region on Christmas Day and New Year's Day.
Along with several other theme parks and leisure-based businesses on the Gold Coast, the group's parks were heavily impacted by these storms, and Greg will provide some further detail on this shortly. Against this backdrop, it's been pleasing to note that the consolidated EBITDA for the group, excluding specific items, has held up broadly in line with the prior period. The theme parks and attractions business has again proven resilient, as Gary mentioned, with visitation up 6.5% on prior period and ticket sales up almost 12%. Most of this growth came from increased sales of annual passes, for which revenue is recognized over 12 months. As a result of this change in sales mix, revenue of AUD 43.5 million was broadly in line with the prior period. But as Gary mentioned, deferred revenue has increased AUD 3.2 million versus December 2022.
This revenue performance was achieved despite the business cycling a strong first half 2023, which benefited from AUD 2.4 million of revenue, which was funded by Queensland Government COVID stimulus initiatives. EBITDA for the theme parks and attractions business has also remained positive at AUD 3.1 million, albeit slightly lower than prior period due to the revenue impacts just mentioned, ongoing cost pressures, and significant construction activity at Dreamworld throughout the period. As Gary mentioned, the group remains well-capitalized to fund its future growth and drive increased shareholder value with a solid balance sheet, including AUD 106 million of cash at the 26th of December. Subsequent to this date, the group has received a further $8.1 million of deferred consideration related to the Main Event sale and has also settled a shareholder class action with a cash payment of AUD 4 million in February.
The on-market share buyback, which commenced in September, is ongoing, with 20 million shares bought back in the period to 26th of December at a cost of AUD 8.9 million. This has resulted in 459.7 million shares remaining on issue as at the reporting date. Then finally, as announced a few days ago and as Gary mentioned, the group has recently obtained an independent valuation of our SkyPoint property. As previously disclosed, the group's investments in its property, plant and equipment are carried in the accounts at historical cost net of accumulated depreciation and impairments. Notwithstanding the accounting treatment, the true value of these assets is considered to be materially higher. The recent valuation has been commissioned to provide some detail on the potential upside as it relates to SkyPoint. I must add, it's not in connection with any proposed transaction.
At the 26th of December, the carrying amount of SkyPoint's PP&E in the balance sheet was AUD 11.3 million. However, having regard to the independent valuation recently performed by Knight Frank, the board has determined the fair value of this property to be approximately AUD 37 million. On slide 4, we provide some further detail on the consolidated results for the first half of FY 2024. As mentioned, the theme parks and attractions business has showed a steady performance in the face of ongoing economic headwinds and the recent severe storms, with operating revenue of AUD 43.5 million broadly in line with the prior period. This was achieved despite the business cycling of a strong first half 2023, which benefited from increased interstate visitation fueled by pent-up demand and uncertainty over international travel, as well as AUD 2.4 million of annual pass revenue underpinned by Queensland Government COVID stimulus initiatives.
Also relevant, as I mentioned, is the change in sales mix, which has resulted in greater timing lag between the ticket sales growth recorded and its associated revenue recognition. As mentioned, this has resulted in an increase in deferred revenue of AUD 3.2 million compared to 12 months ago. The theme parks and attractions business has also delivered another positive EBITDA result, which, excluding specific items, came in at AUD 3.1 million for the period. Half on half, this is an improvement compared to the second half of FY 2023 but fell slightly short of first half 2023 performance due to the revenue impacts just mentioned and continuing cost pressures seen in the business. As always, corporate overheads continue to be an area of focus for the group, and further progress was made to reduce the cost base in the current year.
As a result, corporate costs, excluding specific items, were recorded at AUD 3 million for the half, a meaningful improvement compared to AUD 4 million reported in first half 2023. Some further color on these costs will be provided later in this presentation. After corporate costs, the group reported a statutory EBITDA loss from its continuing operations of AUD 5.2 million. However, it is important to note that this result was impacted by a number of one-off and non-cash specific items, which I'll discuss further on the next slide. Excluding these items, EBITDA from continuing operations was marginally above break-even and broadly in line with the prior period. Net interest income of AUD 2.8 million was also 53% higher than prior period, reflecting investment of the group's cash balances in term deposits at higher interest rates, a small consolation benefit of the current higher interest rate environment.
The additional gain from discontinued operations of AUD 12.6 million recorded this year reflects the recognition of $8.6 million deferred consideration receivable from the sale of Main Event, of which the majority was received after the reporting date. Overall, the net impact of these items has seen the group report a net profit after tax of AUD 4.8 million for the period compared to AUD 669.5 million in the prior period, noting, of course, that the first half 2023 result included the large gain on sale of Main Event. Moving to slide 5. As indicated earlier, the group's results for the period have been impacted by a number of one-off and non-cash-specific items, and here I'll provide a little more detail regarding these items.
Firstly, in relation to the prior period result, it's worth reminding everyone again that the net results of the group in the first half 2023 included the gain on sale of Main Event amounting to AUD 682 million. Further details in relation to this gain are disclosed in note 17 to the half-year financial report. However, it's worth noting that this gain, as reported in the prior year, excluded Ardent's share of additional consideration, which would be received as Main Event tax losses were ultimately utilized by Dave & Buster's. And during the current period, the group's result now includes the recognition of this additional consideration amounting to $8.6 million. Based on the tax losses utilized in the period by Dave & Buster's, receipts of these funds are no longer considered contingent, and a receivable has been recognized in the balance sheet at the half-year reporting date.
As mentioned, after the reporting date, the group has subsequently received the majority of these funds, some $8.1 million, with the remaining portion expected in late 2024. The group's results have also been impacted by AUD 3.7 million of shareholder class action costs net of insurance recoveries. As mentioned in the FY 2023 full-year results presentation, the group reached agreement to settle this matter earlier in the period, with the company incurring a one-off cost of approximately AUD 4 million. Following court approval, the settlement amount has now been paid, and associated insurance reimbursements received in February 2024. In relation to the recent severe storms, the group's results also reflect the write-off of damaged property at Dreamworld and WhiteWater World amounting to AUD 0.7 million. Now, this amount represents the net value of affected assets comprising an original cost of AUD 4.3 million net of depreciation and impairments.
The replacement cost of these assets has yet to be fully determined, but it's likely to be higher than the original cost of these assets of AUD 4.3 million. It's important to note that the financial statements currently exclude any insurance recoveries in relation to the damage and trading disruption caused by these storms. The group is working with its insurers to assess the total financial impact and to progress the associated insurance claims, with the amount of insurance reimbursements yet to be fully quantified at this stage. Finally, the group's results include a AUD 3.2 million tax expense for tax losses incurred in the period, for which a deferred tax asset has not been recognized. Together with prior period losses, the group now has over AUD 140 million of tax losses, which are not recognized on the balance sheet.
These are of considerable value to the group, as despite the accounting treatment, they remain available for future use by the group when it returns to a positive taxable position. I'll now hand over to Greg, who will provide a little more color on the performance of the theme parks and attractions business.
Thanks, José, and good morning to everyone. Let's kick off with slide 7. Now, I know there's been some media coverage on this. However, for those who are not aware, we suffered two significant weather events recently, which impacted our properties up here in Coomera. On Christmas night, we had what is now being classed as a tornado. It struck the northern Gold Coast and inflicted substantial damage to Dreamworld and WhiteWater World. The businesses were closed or traded without the full offer for up to a week due to damage and, in the case of WhiteWater World, no power being available. On the 1st of January, the parks and the local area also experienced severe flooding, which necessitated the full closure of the properties for another two days. Pleasingly, and I think perhaps incredibly, no animals or people were hurt as a result of these storms.
I also want to make particular mention of the absolutely incredible work from all members of our team, along with our dedicated suppliers, in getting our parks back up and running in a very expeditious fashion. On slide 8, you can see a glimpse of some of the damage that was seen across our parks, the parks. As José has already mentioned, we're in the midst of working through what that insurance claim will look like going forward. On slide 9, we have provided some further insights into the weather for January. As you're probably aware, the Bureau of Meteorology officially stated that Australia was in an El Niño weather period. As I'm told, it typically implies hot, dry conditions. Though, unfortunately, for January, we didn't see a lot of that.
In every way you look, January was really a weather disaster, be it the amount of rained-out days, the total rainfall, or the part of the month that was most impacted. This January, we saw over 130% more rain-impacted days than last year and over 120% more impacted days than the January average over the last 30 years. If I put it simply, we had 21 days or nearly 70% of our trading days impacted by rain through January. To further exacerbate things, much of this rain fell in the early part of the month, and this period is the busiest period of our entire year. So the effect is somewhat more pronounced than if we would have had the same set of events in a month like February. Clearly, the question is, what has this meant for the business?
Firstly, we saw a significant move in interstate holiday makers either leaving the Gold Coast early or canceling their trips, and we saw a corresponding reduction in our interstate business. While there was a similarly devastating impact to our local market in terms of storm damage, we were very pleased that the residual pass holiday base remained strong and drove visitation throughout the month. So January, despite all of the doom and gloom I've just talked about, the rain, the entire closures of the park, we still ended up 8.9% in attendance. On the ground, to give you some color as to what that looked like, we had days of zero when we closed, a relatively poor attendance in wet weather. That was contrasted with days where we literally couldn't park another car in the car park.
So all in all, we're left ruing what was likely to be a very strong January result, but we're very pleased with how the business is recovering. As you can see in the attendance growth chart on this slide, the first 7 weeks of the year are up 16.8%. As Gary mentioned earlier, we can advise that February attendances so far as of this morning are up over 40% on the prior year. Turning to slide 13 and the operating results. My apologies, turning to slide 10 and the operating results. The first area I'd like to touch on is expenses. While attendance increased 6.5%, our operating expenses increased 2.5%. Now, to be candid, I'm not happy with that result, but I'm very and I'm very focused on making sure that we find more efficiencies across the group.
In fairness, it is a reasonable number given the significant inflationary pressure we've seen on our cost lines over the half. To give you some insights with some of the key challenges have been a 5.75% increase in wages handed down by the Fair Work Commission, which has essentially applied to our entire wage base along with a 0.5% increase in the superannuation guarantee. Across the board, we're seeing increases in marginal or non-activity-based cost lines, things like insurance, IT systems, land taxes, even natural gas. As I stated ad nauseam, savings will never, ever come at the cost of safety. In fact, during the half, we've made several incremental safety investments, namely a significant upgrade to our water quality systems at WhiteWater World and a move to an independent ride operations auditing regime. These initiatives highlight our ongoing efforts for continuous improvement.
The team and I regard expenditure as a critical area for the second half, and we anticipate delivering further improvement through management action and some tailwinds such as the anticipated bringing online of our new solar array, which is the largest in any theme park in Australia and will deliver substantial savings on our energy line once finally commissioned. On the income side, we saw a relatively flat result but an increase in ticket sales of over 11% for the prior period. This is once again another highest first-half ticket sales result since 2016. Importantly, we've seen solid performance in our annual pass product, and while this is pleasing, it means that the full value of those sales are not recognized in the revenue for the first half, albeit we've got the cash and a commensurate increase in deferred revenue, which is up over 30% on the prior year.
So all in all, ticket sales are particularly promising for the half, given we were cycling a very strong first half last year, including the AUD 2.4 million of COVID stimulus that we recognized during that time. That the Gold Coast total occupancy across every month of the first half was down on the prior period. That our new attractions have really not had any time to add economic benefit given the bulk of them have opened really six weeks ago in late December. Given we also had the full closure of the park on Boxing Day, which is traditionally one of the busiest days of the year. And lastly, that the first-half experience at Dreamworld was materially impacted by construction of all of this new product. Let's move to slide 11.
We've covered the first half in some detail, so let's discuss the right-hand side of the slide and our unaudited performance of January. As we've shown and talked about, the month has already seen some pretty much unprecedented rainfall, and it's clearly impacted trade throughout the month, while severe flooding also resulted in the parks being closed for those two full days as I've outlined earlier. Preliminary accommodation data suggests that these weather events softened the Gold Coast occupancy to the tune of around 5% compared to last year. In the face of all of this, we saw attendance actually increase for the month by almost 9%, and ticket sales finished only marginally lower than last year, albeit that was aided by the support of a Queensland Government Summer Fund promotion, which was executed flawlessly by our team.
Revenue was behind the prior period as a result of both the timing of the revenue recognition and the loss of impact revenues on the impacted weather days. EBITDA excluding specific items remained positive and was actually slightly up on last year. And so for the month where we should have seen a much worse result, we were particularly heartened. I won't say happy, but heartened with where we landed. And there's some things I think that are worth noting from all of this. Firstly, January illustrates the importance of a robust annual pass program, something that we've been resolute about now for some time, and we saw the clear benefits of the weather hedge that that creates in our January results.
Secondly, and perhaps an insight from being on the ground in our businesses through all of January, I saw the first-hand positive demand that our new attractions are creating. Yes, we had days of closure, and yes, we had rained-out days, but what we also saw was that when the weather was fine and even when the Gold Coast was soft at the destination, our businesses across the board fired. SkyPoint was busy throughout, and as I mentioned, several days at Dreamworld and WhiteWater World, we just couldn't fit another car in the car park. So these very strong days made up for the weather, and that's what got us to that near 9% increase in attendance for the month and an increase in EBITDA against January last year. Let's turn to slide 12 and an update on the attractions pipeline.
Our team has done a tremendous job to deliver the attractions on time and within our budgets despite what is, in my view, the most difficult construction environment I've seen in 20 years in the industry. We've now opened the extension to Ocean Parade, which has been capped with our brand new Seabed Splash Waterplay Zone. This area not only looks fantastic, but it provides a solid cooling-off option for our guests during periods where the park is not open on those off-season days. Kenny and Belinda's Dreamland at Dreamworld is now complete. The entire land is beautifully finished and has been built with deep engagement from our teams to ensure that we've minimized the need for wasteful ongoing maintenance on areas such as floor servicing.
The area is also enhanced by two brand new attractions in the Wiggles Big Red Planes and everyone's new favorite, the Wiggles Big Red Coaster, which formally opened on the 23rd of December. We also opened the Dreamworld Flyer at the front of the park in December. This attraction really does set the scene, bringing new kinetic energy and a nostalgic nod to the architectural intent of the park as it was conceived on opening day. If we turn to slide 13, you can see the new Wiggles attractions. As I say, we are always just so thankful to be working with such an iconic Australian brand.
On slide 14, you can see Seabed Splash, and you can also see the fantastic Dreamworld Flyer complete with 128 embedded water fountains, which obviously create a spectacular show during the day and also into the evening at the Dreamworld Night Markets. On slide 15, we've provided a glimpse of what is to come in our new Rivertown land, which we're aiming to open at the end of this calendar year. We've always said that Dreamland and the Dreamworld Flyer were strategic initiatives partially envisioned to maintain attraction momentum and partially to consolidate what we felt was a confusing and a duplicated offer in our kids' product. Rivertown is all about driving new business, and this area will be the highest-quality, most thematic work done in the history of Dreamworld. As a reminder, there are two integral parts of Rivertown.
As you enter, you'll be in Murrissippi Motors, a reimagination of our incredibly popular vintage cars ride. We're keeping the best parts of that ride in that kids will be able to continue to drive the cars themselves, but we're adding a tremendous amount of theming throughout the entire attraction from the cars right through to the new ride building. For several years, we've also been leading the way in accessibility with initiatives like wheelchair spaces in every carriage of the Dreamworld Express and our ongoing efforts to provide a comfortable experience for neurodiverse people on our properties, such as our new visual story, which is available on our website to help pre-plan your day in the park.
To that end, it gives us great joy to announce that we are building two new custom vehicles for Murrissippi Motors that are specifically designed to accommodate a wheelchair on this attraction. The penultimate attraction at Rivertown is Jungle Rush, and our ride partner on this attraction is Vekoma, a tier one manufacturer, a company with an incredible history in the industry having worked with the likes of Universal Studios and Disney and on projects as recent as the new TRON lightcycle coaster, which was installed at the busiest theme park on Earth, Disney's Magic Kingdom, just last year. Our ride has several world firsts, but what we are most excited about is its intergenerational appeal. Our vision from the outset has been to see grandma or grandpa enjoying this ride with their grandkids.
That's not to say the ride's boring, in fact, far from that, but we are laser-focused on creating an immersive experience from the moment you enter Rivertown right through to when you leave. That is particularly the case with all the work going into Jungle Rush. I think the image on this slide gives you a feel for the degree of scale we're aiming for in this land. As I say, our current plans suggest an opening at the end of the year. Obviously, it's a placeholder date as we navigate the current environment. Turning to slide 16 and SkyPoint. As we've been saying for some time, we are extremely pleased with the performance we're seeing at SkyPoint.
As José stated earlier, we conducted evaluation at SkyPoint, which confirmed our view that there's a significant amount of upside from the carrying value of the business in our books, and we think it's important for holders to be well aware of that fact. I want to stress there is no other rationale for this exercise. We're not looking at divesting the asset. It is a critical part of the business, and in fact, we're investing in it. Late last year, we conducted a bottom-up review of the operation, refreshing the brand, the presentation of the venue, and completely revamped our core and our limited-time-offer menus. And you can see some of this work on the slide. We're very pleased with the results of this, and it has seen SkyPoint again have a very strong half.
On slide 17, we provide an update on our guest experience, which, as you know from previous presentations, is absolutely mission-critical to our strategy. Attractions, events, food innovation, all of this kind of stuff are all somewhat replicable, but the intangible element of our business, such as the culture of service excellence, is absolutely difficult to copy, and it's a key part of our differentiation. Once again, the Coast Entertainment properties with the highest-rated experiences on the Gold Coast for the half. We provide it just a small sample of the incredible feedback we get every day from our guests, and I can tell you this is no accident. Our team, including myself, we respond to every single Google review we receive, which means we have a finger absolutely on the pulse of what guests are saying and feeling when they visit our properties.
On slide 18, I've provided an update on our progress on our key strategic pillars. We continue to make excellent strides in safety, and we're privileged to have what is simply a world-class team in our safety area, our engineering area, and our attractions and aquatics operations teams. Make no mistake, safety is the most important thing in our business each and every day, and the work here is never finished. In the business transformation space, I'm pleased to say that our people are continuing to contain expenditure to below levels of CPI in what is a very challenging inflationary environment. We're obviously awaiting new initiatives to come online to reduce cost pressure, as I've mentioned, with the solar array. As José outlined, we've also made some material changes to the corporate office cost base over the course of the year.
Outside of our safety, our predominant focus is firmly on growing revenue. We've spoken about the success we're seeing as a result of our Dreamworld difference in service as well as the progress in our attraction program. We continue to look for new opportunities to fine-tune ourselves and marketing efforts to sell the great work that is happening across the properties. Critically, we are well down the path of our complementary development plans with our preliminary development application lodged with the local government. Should our application be successful, we will be afforded significant optionality on our land holdings, which, in our view, can only be accretive to value. Lastly, none of the things we've spoken about can be done without an incredible team. Yes, we're a great place to work, but we also expect very high performance from our people.
I thank our entire team for their ongoing efforts. On slide 19, we've provided some additional updates, most of which we've touched on throughout today's presentation. For Easter, we look forward to welcoming guests to experience our new attractions as well as the Dreamworld Food Festival returning again. And briefly, on international visitation, we continue to see improvement. However, it remains a significant upside opportunity, and we are well positioned to capture our fair share of this as it returns to South East Queensland, particularly from Asian markets. I'll now hand the call back over to José to talk through capital management and corporate costs.
Thanks, Greg. I'll now provide some detail regarding the group's capital management and corporate costs before handing back to Greg for some final closing remarks and Q&A. On slide 21, we show a summary of the group's liquidity and cash flows for the period. As you can see, the group ended the period with cash on hand of AUD 106 million, a reduction of AUD 35 million compared to June. This largely reflects AUD 26.1 million of capital expenditure and AUD 8.9 million of cash returned to investors via the on-market share buyback. In the first half, the group bought back 20 million shares, representing approximately 42% of the maximum shares which can be bought back under this program.
Capital expenditure payments in the period reflect a combination of both scheduled maintenance CapEx as well as development CapEx on the new rides and attractions which have recently opened at Dreamworld, as well as some preliminary expenditure on the new Jungle Rush coaster and Rivertown Precinct, which are currently in development. Operating cash outflows for the period of AUD 3.1 million are an improvement of AUD 4.7 million compared to the prior period. When taken with offsetting interest receipts of AUD 3.3 million, this means that before capital items, the group was slightly cash flow positive for the period. Turning to slide 22. Here, we show the group's cash on hand at 26th of December and how we're thinking about this in terms of the capital management over the next 12 months or so.
As previously mentioned, the group has a solid balance sheet with cash on hand of AUD 106 million at the half-year reporting date. Subsequent to this date, the cash position has been further improved, as Gary mentioned, with the receipt of the additional deferred consideration from the sale of Main Event, partly offset by costs of settling the shareholder class action earlier this month. As noted by Greg, the group has recently opened a number of exciting new rides and attractions with the development of the new Jungle Rush Coaster and Rivertown Precinct now in full swing. These significant investments are a critical part of the group's strategy to drive performance of the business back to and beyond historical levels.
With most of this major development still to be funded, along with some residual costs from the recently completed works, the group expects to see a significant deployment of development capital over the next 12 months. In addition, we expect to incur costs of around AUD 7 million-AUD 10 million in respect of our routine annual maintenance CapEx. As I noted previously, the on-market share buyback is also ongoing with almost 42% bought back as of the reporting date. This program has continued into the second half, and as at the close of business yesterday, the group has now bought back 24.1 million shares, or just over half of the maximum shares under the program, with around 455.6 million shares now remaining on issue. The remainder of the buyback is anticipated to be funded over the next six months or so.
In terms of the remaining cash, we have previously outlined some of the opportunities which exist to unlock further value in the group's land holdings. Having regard to these items, the current environment, and some of the upfront costs associated with the recent storms, we think it's important to continue maintaining our strong balance sheet. As such, we consider it prudent to retain sufficient cash to provide headroom for the group's operating and capital requirements in the near term, as well as to afford the group with flexibility and financial capacity to pursue some of the growth opportunities as they arise. With that being said, we will, of course, continue to review funding priorities, liquidity, and options for further capital management initiatives, having regard to the ongoing performance of the group, its capital position and funding requirements, as well as prevailing market conditions.
Finally, slide 23 provides a high-level overview of the group's corporate overheads. As I mentioned earlier, these costs are a continuing area of focus for the group, and despite ongoing cost pressures driven by the current inflationary environment, management have been able to achieve meaningful savings during the period. Corporate costs of AUD 3.5 million include about AUD 500,000 of non-recurring and non-cash-specific items. Excluding these items, the underlying cost base of AUD 3 million has improved 25% compared to AUD 4 million reported in first half 2023. As the chart shows, insurance costs continue to make up around half of this amount but have reduced by about AUD 0.4 million during the period. The remainder of costs is made up of director and employee costs and other expenses associated with being an ASX-listed group, so things like ASX fees, registry fees, investor communications, audit tax, consulting, and travel expenses.
These costs have collectively reduced by around AUD 0.6 million in the period, largely as a result of a head office restructuring and a reduction in directors' fees. Despite the current inflationary challenges and considerable savings already achieved to date, management will continue to closely manage these costs to drive efficiencies and realize further savings wherever possible. This concludes the main part of our presentation, and I'll now hand back to Greg for some final closing remarks before opening up the lines to Q&A.
Thanks, José. Look, I just want to sum up the key messages from today. The first half saw an increase in attendance and ticket sales against a strong half last year and in the background of a Gold Coast accommodation market which was behind last year in every month of the half and with Dreamworld undergoing capital works which impacted the experience across much of the park. As we've already outlined, annual passes were very strong, and while that revenue is not reflected in the results, it can be seen in ticket sales, and it can be seen into the third revenue, which is a balanced state up nearly 30% on the same time last year. And while we suffered some tremendous challenges with weather in January, we still managed an increase in attendance and in EBITDA on the prior year.
Our trends in December leading up to the tornado event were solid, with attendance up over 20%, and that is intensifying with February attendances, as we've mentioned a few times, up over 40% to date. We remain very confident in our plans to grow revenue over the coming few years. While we have seen positive responses to our new product launched only eight weeks ago, these amount to more of hygiene CapEx than they are primarily revenue driving. Rivertown, on the other hand, is squarely focused on driving gate, click-and-collect styles, and selling tickets. We believe that we've got the right formula to do just that. Clearly, the macroeconomic environment in Australia remains uncertain. But as I've said, we believe this is episodic. It's not endemic to our industry, and we feel strongly that out-of-home experiences will continue to be a popular choice for families globally.
Lastly, we feel very positive about our balance sheet position with no debt, wholly owned land holdings, and substantial upside opportunity with assets that are carried at significantly lower value than what they were in FY 2016. With that, let's open up the call for questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star, then one, on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question comes from Brian Han of Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks. Greg, I know it was only January, but at the operating level, how were you able to generate positive EBITDA when revenue was down 7%?
So, Brian, really the opposite was the ability to constrain costs. Now, there were two parts to that. Obviously, we constrained costs quite significantly when the parks were closed. But moreover, we did, obviously, as you would expect, move the business very significantly on the rained-out days. Now, my preference is not to save money by having significant reductions in labor on rained-out days. I'd much prefer to have the parks operating and at full tilt, but I think it's important that we obviously flex and move as we need to. Obviously, the other benefit that we had through the month which helped was that SkyPoint was unaffected by the weather, and SkyPoint, again, had a very strong month.
Right. So there is a lot of flexibility on rained-out days for you to flex that labor cost base?
Let me just give you some color on that, Brian. There is, to a degree, obviously and I've mentioned this a lot in other presentations. We still suffer dyseconomies of scale in the organization merely because attendances, as they stand today, are still somewhat off where we want them to be. And then we have some minimum staffing requirements, as you would expect, on attractions and things like that with regard to safety. But with the amount of weather that we had and again, I've talked about the amount of rained-out days, but also just the amount of volume of rain that we had meant that we could literally close several parts of the parks or rotate rides.
So we didn't have any safety impacts, but we took a very, very strong view around cost, and we were able to do that because, just as I said, the parks on those terribly rainy days were very quiet, and so we managed to do what we could there. If the weather is less intense and it's raining but not terribly, look, we still want to have a full lunch for the guests. We want to make sure they have a good experience. But in this case, with how bad the weather was on certain days, we were able to make some very significant savings.
Okay. Great. José, on slide 22 about capital management, your line was breaking up everywhere. So on that slide, can you help me out and tell me what the figure is for that previously announced development pipeline bar graph so I don't have to get out a ruler over here?
Yeah. It's approximately AUD 35 million-AUD 40 million of remaining spend.
Great. Okay.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Max Moser French from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hey. Congratulations on the result through some very tough weather conditions near the end. I was just wondering if you guys could comment on the annual and day pass sales mix shift and sort of as that mix continued into January?
Morning, Max. Yeah. Look, that mix has, to some degree, come through in January. And that's why if you see on our January performance, which we've put some detail on on slide 11, you can see that our ticket sales were pretty close to PCP, yet the revenue was below PCP. That's a function of two things. One is that there still is quite a bit of annual pass in there. I'm reluctant to give you the fine detail as to what that mix looks like in quantifiable terms, obviously, for competitive reasons. But that gives you some insight as to why ticket sales were up there about. And operating revenue was slightly behind last year. Obviously, revenue being slightly behind last year is also a function, moreover, of the days that we were closed or very much rained out.
We just didn't get any impact SMB and impact retail revenue on those days. And so that revenue number is a mix of both impact revenue and also the fact that a lot of the revenue was deferred.
Okay. Thanks for that. And also, how are the LEGO sales going, and does this impact the spend-in-park metric?
Yes, it does. Look, LEGO is still doing very well for us. It's pretty much about where we were last year. Look, LEGO does ebb and flow a lot with new releases. One of the real drivers of the LEGO business is, one, the fact that there's some fashion in that it is here at Dreamworld, and people love that part of it compared to other LEGO stores. But also, new releases really do drive performance, and so it's doing about where we saw it last year. And it is within our impact spending numbers, and so that's how we capture it, and we've always captured it in that way. So there's no changes in terms of how we think about it.
Okay. And also, what is the latest plan on the property? Is it to rezone and sell, partner, or build? Just a bit more color on that.
Yeah. Look, our focus really at the moment, Max, is just getting the approvals through. Obviously, we're thinking about all the other options that are out there, but our prime focus at the minute is really just get the approvals through. You can imagine that we're certainly having conversations in the organization about what that looks like. We're very cognizant of what our core capabilities are and what we're good at and what we may not be so much. And so that's certainly going into our thinking. But to be frank, we do at the moment, the focus here is just trying to make sure that we get our approvals through. And we think at the end of the day, even at that date, the value of the land becomes somewhat more than what it is today given the optionality that we receive.
But obviously, the next step on that is how do we further crystallize that value.
Okay. Thanks for that. Also, I think on slide 7, you state that most of the adverse effects go beyond the days of closure and mostly falling into the second half. Can you give a bit of color about that? Is that just rained-out days, or?
Yeah. So look, I think we've called out the fact that we've had closed days, and it's easy to kind of look at those days and say, "Okay. Well, the rest of the month was okay." And as we've tried to just show you on that rainfall impact chart on slide 9, we had closure days, but we also had extended challenges as a result of that. And as I said before, whilst we were closed on Boxing Day and Dreamworld partially reopened on the 27th, it didn't open with what I would say is the full offer. We opened literally the ride component of the park. We didn't have WhiteWater World open, and we didn't have any of the animal areas open. That's where we saw the most damage, as you can see on the slide previously.
And so whilst we talk about certain days that were closed, we didn't believe that we had what we would be proud of as an offer on the days subsequent to those weather events. And so that's what we're trying to say there. But again, all of that is captured within the results we've talked about, so there's no other impacts. I think the only other thing to contemplate, as we've outlined in regards to the impact of the storm, is what we naturally will be working on in terms of the insurance receivable. And obviously, that's a matter for ongoing focus for us over the next short while.
Okay. Thanks for that. Also, congratulations on the corporate costs. Is there any further room to move those lower than the AUD 6 million annualized, or how are you thinking about those?
Look, I might let José speak to that one, and if I can help out and add some extra commentary, I will.
There's always room to improve, I guess. Although the amount of savings achieved today, I wouldn't say that it's material runway. Certainly, we're continuing to focus on the insurance element being the largest part and seeing what we can do to reduce that wherever possible. There are a few other areas that we've identified, but I wouldn't call them hugely significant. Yeah.
José, your line's a little bit crackly. Maybe it's just me, but I think it might be a bit hard for you, Max, as well. I'm not sure. But.
Yeah. It's not too clear.
Okay. Let me just add to that if I can. As we say, look, there's always opportunities to be more efficient, and we're constantly looking at that across the business, and that goes with the corporate office as well. But just to paint you a picture of that corporate office, we literally have four people there. And the rest of the corporate overhead really is, as José outlined in the presentation, is really around listing costs that are involved in being a public company. Where do we see opportunity? Look, there's probably some opportunity. Well, there is opportunity around insurance. We have certainly seen some indications of the insurance market potentially moving in our favor for the first time in many years, and I can see that's an active stream of work for us in the organisation.
But look, there's certainly not $several million worth of opportunity in the corporate overhead, in our view.
Okay. Thanks for that. Also, one last question. Are you still cycling the government stimulus with the Play Money in the second half, or is that not in the PCP anymore?
We had a little bit in the January number, but that's it. So it's all now washed through.
Okay. Thanks. I'll let someone else ask questions. Cheers.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Allan Franklin from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Gary, Greg. José, I hope you're all well, and thanks for your time. Quick handful of questions, please. Just on the Gold Coast Council approval process, can you just talk to the updates there, please, some of the information they've requested? And I think you noted, but you're still thinking about sort of a mid-calendar year approval timeframe?
Yeah. Good morning, Alan. Hope you're well as well. Look, we're in the midst of responding to RFIs with council as we speak. Obviously, we've got a range of different work streams going on there from hydraulics to environmental, economic, traffic, and so on. And so where we are in the process at the minute is that we've obviously lodged application last year. There's been several courses of pre-lodgement meetings and engagement with different people within council, and we're in the midst now of going through that more detailed response process. There's nothing so far in that process that we're particularly concerned about. And let me speak really candidly on this, is that if I look at what we're looking to do here in terms of the approvals we're seeking, we're not looking for anything that I think is unreasonable.
If I look at what's been approved in the local area, it is not inconsistent with those approvals, and we feel very confident that what we're looking to do here is really beneficial to, obviously, Coast, but moreover, I think very beneficial to residents of the northern Gold Coast in particular. So at this point in time, Alan, there's no change to our perspective on that. Look, there is obviously ebbs and flows in terms of timing and responses to RFIs and all of that kind of stuff, but at this point in time, our view is still that we will have a view as to where our approval sits and a decision around the middle of the year at this point in time. And so my view is that I'd like to have a, at the very least, something at the AGM and potentially something earlier than that.
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. And then just on Jungle Rush, perhaps just a little bit of color in terms of the risk points on delivery there. Have you received all the sort of key physical infrastructure that you sort of need? And I assume the risk point, as you touched on, is weather, but any sort of color on access to trades and the like?
Yeah. So as I've outlined, the construction space is difficult, has been difficult for some time. I think that's well known across the board. The only view I would say on top that's probably in our favor a little bit is that we are seeing a window at the moment in terms of pressure coming off slightly, and I would say slightly at this point in time before I think there'll be another ramp-up in terms of construction activity as South East Queensland really kind of motivates towards the Olympics and all the associated infrastructure that comes with that. To give you just exactly where we are on that project, and we have the board out this week, and the board managed to get around and walk the site with us, is we're literally about to come out of the ground on this job.
We're pouring slabs at the moment, and so we've dealt with what is usually a significant area of risk on these kind of projects in terms of getting out of the ground, and we're now largely there. In terms of us working through contracting and so on, we're on a fixed-cost contract, but in fairness, there are some quite significant PC sums in there, which is, I think, the nature of the construction industry at this point in time. What we're seeing at the moment as we vet and let contracts is that we're pretty reasonably happy with where we're getting in terms of that performance. And so I think on the budget perspective, we're feeling pretty good about things. If there's anywhere that I'm concerned about in terms of risk, it is obviously always going to be time.
We're in the hands of weather, and we've lost a fair bit of float, as you can imagine, in terms of that project with all of this weather in January. But we are doing everything we can, and we've got an incredible projects team here at Dreamworld led by a very, very experienced senior project manager on our side. So look, I'm as confident as I can be, but obviously, that's always the challenge for us, is can we get it done on time?
Yeah. Helpful. Thank you. And just the last one. Just on how to think about per-cap spend, please. We've had a couple of hours now in and around AUD 66. I think you touched on impact spends tracking okay. It feels like some of the initial mix shift towards annual pass sales has sort of played through. So can you just talk to me sort of pluses or minuses in terms of how to think about the 66 moving forward?
Yeah. I've always been pretty clear about this, is that we feel really good about some of the work that's been done on yield over the last several years. I've said, "Look, there's also some tailwinds that management aren't going to put their hands up and claim that as a result of good leadership, they're more around situational factors." Let me just briefly just cover around those things again. We absolutely have moved price. If you look at our average ticket price back in 2016 to what average ticket price is today, there's a significant difference just in that metric alone. We've also done some work around rationalization of resellers, and obviously, that comes with a shift towards more direct ticketing and associated yield benefits that we get from that.
As I've also outlined, we've also had this tailwind, if you will, or this supporting factor of having very low international visitation. Now, let me be frank and clear about that. I want the international visitation. But when it comes on, it obviously is typically slightly lower yield than what it is in terms of our normal domestic business, and so that often has a bit of a softening effect on per-caps. As we've called out, we see that impact per-caps are holding up at the minute, but we are seeing some what I would say is simply mathematical pressure on per-cap overall as we see more visitation. And look, that's a good thing. The more annual pass visitors that we can get to come more and more is critical to our whole strategy.
The fundamental piece around that is if we can get an annual pass holder to come back and revisit, our numbers suggest that the propensity for them to stay with us and renew is much higher. And obviously, every time they come back, we're obviously seeing an opportunity to sell them something else and give them another really strong experience. And so look, there is some mathematical pressure on the per-caps. I hesitate to give any guidance on it. We're not looking to do any significant drastic changes around headline pricing or anything like that in the negative. We're always looking at continuing to look at getting more price as we increase and enhance the guest experience. But at the same time, I've always said that we'll look at promotional activity if and when we see fit.
But there's a very clear mandate around that in the organization that is very much targeted to specific geographies at specific timeframes and ring-fenced and very clear as to what we're trying to achieve. There's no broad-brushed offers going out there.
That's good context. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from David Kingston from K Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Look, I just have two questions, please. The first one is that it's good to hear that visitation was up and also ticket sales were up in the half, but I can't quite understand, given those two things, how the revenue has been absolutely flat. And the critical ramifications of that are that with a high fixed-cost business that Dreamworld is, the critical thing is revenue. And without the revenue, you're not going to be able to make a profit. And flowing from that, the first half, again, there's an EBIT loss, and one has to assume that there will continue to be an EBIT loss for the full year 2024 given the AUD 6 million head office costs and the AUD 8 million depreciation or maintenance CapEx. And I'm also conscious that those results are achieved after a very healthy, positive contribution from Sky.
It indicates that Dreamworld and WhiteWater World are losing a significant amount of money at the EBIT line. Maybe I can stop there. That's the first question. Could you clarify how the revenue is only flat when visitation is up and ticket sales are up? Thank you.
Thanks, David. Good morning. Look, let me just be clear about the revenue and the per-cap side of things. It is really just simply a function of mix. And so I can tell you that the increase in ticket sales that we saw over the PCP, that 11.8%, if that was all single-day or multi-day, we would see a commensurate increase in revenue. That's not the case. We've sold more annual passes. We're happy with that. We want to sell annual pass. But the literal accounting implication of that is that we're obliged to recognize that revenue over the course of the performance period for that pass. Now, that's obviously not been the case for every day. It's not new, but certainly back in 2016, for example, was something that we recognized the full amount of that ticket sale on the day. Now, that's not the case anymore.
As I say, two things. One, you can see it in the ticket sales. It's up 11.8% on PCP. And moreover, you can see it in cash and in deferred revenue because we've got, again, extra money in deferred revenue, which we called out the increase on last year at that point. In terms of the comments on EBITDA, look, we've always called out we don't give guidance on what the full-year result will be, and that's consistent with what we've done in the past.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, I hope certainly got to draw a line in the sand. The company really has to deliver an EBIT profit after head office costs and after depreciation, maintenance CapEx. Has to deliver one in FY 2025 because it certainly looks as though there'll be an EBIT loss in 2024. My second question is that and thank you for the clarity, José, on where the cash is going to sit after all of the expenses and some of the revenue. And that's great. You've given clarity, which is where we estimated it at AUD 59 million. So let's fast forward. The CapEx is all spent, and we've got AUD 59 million cash. Balance that against the market cap today at around about AUD 200 million when we adjust for the remainder of the buyback. Sky has been clarified at AUD 37 million, which is slightly above my earlier estimate.
Let's put the land in. Don't expect you to acknowledge it, but at AUD 25 million for 25 hectares. What that does balance against the market cap, it puts a value on Dreamworld and WhiteWater World of AUD 80 million, which is obviously very disturbing because over the last few years and continuing the CapEx, you're going to be spending AUD 120 million on Dreamworld and WhiteWater World CapEx. Fast forwarding to when that's finished, the market is basically saying that the value of Dreamworld and WhiteWater World is AUD 80 million. So obviously, it's a bit of a concern. The market, for some reason, doesn't believe what's happening.
But my question really is, given the AUD 59 million of cash that is going to be retained after the end of all the CapEx and given that shareholders are not receiving a dividend, so their only return is share price growth, which has obviously been disappointing, but can you just give some clarity, Gary, maybe? Why won't you hand back some of that AUD 59 million cash?
Well, your comments, David, highlight as we've endeavored to do what we think is a substantial undervaluation of not only Coast today but Coast moving forward. We've been, as we've telegraphed in these results, pretty aggressive in terms of buyback. What we've said is that we'll see how the full year pans out, and then we'll review capital management or further review capital management and other options at that stage.
Will you consider an additional buyback? Because look, you're halfway through the buyback, which has obviously supported the stock price, Gary, but will you consider an additional buyback?
All options, I think, would be considered open, David.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.