Good morning, and welcome to Dave & Buster's Investor Update Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Quartieri. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us today on our investor update following the acquisition of Main Event. Joining me on today's call are Kevin Sheehan, Chairman of the Board, and Chris Morris, Chief Executive Officer. After our prepared comments, we will be happy to take your questions. This call is being recorded on behalf of Dave & Buster's Entertainment Incorporated and is copyrighted. Please note there is a slide presentation that accompanies our remarks today, and a link can be found on our investor relations website under the Events and Presentation section. Before we begin our discussion of the company's acquisition of Main Event, I'd like to call your attention to the fact that our remarks and our responses to questions, certain items may be discussed which are not entirely based on historical facts.
Any of these items should be considered forward-looking statements relating to future events within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Information on the various risk factors and uncertainties have been published in our filings with the SEC, which are available on our website. In addition, our remarks today will include references to financial measures that are not defined under generally accepted accounting principles. Investors should review the reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP results contained in our earnings announcement released last period, as well as the presentation that is on our website available today. Now I will turn the call over to Kevin.
Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Let me take you through the agenda for this morning. First, I'm going to introduce the management team. Then Chris and Mike will discuss the combined company overview and the new Dave & Buster's financial profile. Following their remarks, we will have time for questions. Flipping over to page four, management presenters. We have assembled an outstanding management team for the new Dave & Buster's. With the addition of Chris, and earlier this year, Mike, we have deep experience across the entertainment, restaurant, and hospitality industries. In addition to all of the value creation opportunity presented by this combination, another benefit of this transaction was our introduction to Chris, who will be a great fit to succeed me as CEO of Dave & Buster's.
After only a few meetings with him during the course of the transaction, I was quickly convinced he would be a great leader for the company. More specifically, Chris brings over 20 years of relevant experience, including 10-plus years of direct entertainment center experience. Before serving as CEO of Main Event, served as the president of California Pizza Kitchen and as CFO of On the Border. His experience also includes serving as CFO of CEC Entertainment, the owner and operator of Chuck E. Cheese, where he helped the company develop approximately 100 new centers and expand internationally. Mike brings over 20 years of finance experience, having previously served as CFO at LiveOne, a platform for live-streamed and on-demand audio and video content. Prior to LiveOne, served as the CFO of Scientific Games, a gaming and lottery supply company where I had the pleasure to work with him.
His experience also includes serving as SVP and Chief Accounting Officer at Las Vegas Sands and as a director at Deloitte. Looking over the deck, page five, the transaction rationale, let me address why the strategic combination of Dave & Buster's and Main Event makes great sense for everyone. Very quickly, I saw that the combination of Dave & Buster's and Main Event would create a market leader in the family entertainment center industry in North America. It creates a leading platform in the attractive and rapidly growing experiential entertainment sector, bringing together two highly differentiated concepts, delivering entertainment for all ages. It enhances the combined company's scale and financial profile with multiple synergistic opportunities. Collectively, we call this the Power of 2.
Now let me turn the call over to Chris to cover Main Event, and then Mike will cover Dave & Buster's with Chris, following to pull everything together. Chris.
All right. Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. Let me start by saying how excited I am to be here at Dave & Buster's. We have two outstanding brands and an incredible team, and we compete in an industry with a very bright future. By combining these two great brands together, we believe we are creating even more growth opportunities which will benefit all stakeholders. Let's start with Main Event, as I know many of you are unfamiliar with the business. Main Event is an experiential entertainment concept with 52 locations across 17 states. Like D&B, we have games and great food and drink, but we also have additional offerings such as bowling, laser tag, escape rooms, and gravity ropes. This all happens in a store size that average 55,000 sq ft versus D&B, which averages 40,000 sq ft.
We also appeal to a wide range of customers, but tend to skew slightly toward families with young children. Main Event has a strong history of growth and profitability over time, and you can clearly see the concept's outperformance coming out of the COVID period. I believe this outperformance is the result of a number of initiatives I and my team put in place when I became CEO of the company in 2018. When I joined the company, we immediately brought a very sharp focus throughout the entire organization on the guest experience in supporting our operating teams. We developed a new service model supported by new SOPs and training programs. We reengineered the brand architecture and shifted the focus of the brand positioning to families. Prior to this, the brand was trying to be all things to all people.
We introduced a new brand logo, which launched a new wave of creative supporting the refined brand positioning, and we overhauled our real estate growth strategy. You can see through our most recent same-store sales trends that consumer spending is robust and the business is continuing to trend well above pre-COVID levels. Keep in mind that our event business is still on a recovery path, so there is only further potential upside from here. Okay, now let me ask Mike to discuss Dave & Buster's.
Thanks, Chris. As most of you know, Dave & Buster's has been around for nearly 40 years, and we are a leading platform in the experiential entertainment space with 148 locations across 41 states. We appeal to a wide range of customers with our unique combination of offerings covering eat, drink, play, and watch, with a slight skew towards young adults. We recently opened our Augusta, Georgia location on June 28th, which represents the 200th location in our combined company and our 3rd mini under our new format. The reception in the marketplace has greatly exceeded our expectations with sales during its first 2-week period of over $900,000. We have a long history of delivering profitable growth throughout cycles. Today, we are stronger than ever as the pandemic created multiple opportunities to improve the business.
Our implementation of technology at the store level with xDine and tablets, along with the revamped operating model, has enabled us to lower overall head count at the store level by approximately 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels, allowing the company to offset the hourly wage inflation we're experiencing. As we announced last month, we are nearing $1.5 billion and $420 million on a last twelve months basis for both sales and EBITDA. As you can see through our most recent same-store sales trends, post the pandemic, variants of Delta and Omicron, consumer spend has been healthy, and like Main Event, the business is trending well above pre-COVID levels. As our event business continues its path to recovery, we will also see further potential upside on the Dave & Buster's brand.
Okay. Thanks, Mike. Moving on to the combined company overview. The combined company creates a scaled, more diversified national-level player with 200 stores today, with an additional 4 Dave & Buster's and 2 Main Event locations to open by the end of our fiscal year. Main Event and Dave & Buster's target slightly different demographics and have proven to coexist very well in markets, which allows the combined platform to provide entertainment for all ages.
We're very excited about the combination with Main Event, as the combined platform will drive growth, profitability, and free cash flow. When combined, the platform represents a historical sales CAGR of over 6% since 2019 and an adjusted EBITDA margin of over 28% in the last 12 months period when including the full run rate of synergies. The combined platform will also have sizable free cash flows, and given the nominal amount of maintenance CapEx, free cash flow conversion will be in the 85%+ range, and the business can either dial up or back growth CapEx as needed to adjust to any economic cycle.
You can see on this page the unmatched depth of our offerings across entertainment and food, including bowling, virtual reality, laser tag, billiards, arcade games, karaoke, mini golf, gravity ropes, mini escape rooms, and more. Note that 67% of our revenue comes from entertainment, which is high margin and more insulated from inflationary pressure. This depth of offerings allows us to cater to a host of occasions for various age groups, including adult social events, kids' birthday parties, youth and young adult groups, school parties, corporate events, team building, day outings, and multi-event locations, which gives us the revenue diversity needed to sustain our growth and cash flows through economic cycles. The combined platform will be a leading national-level entertainment company with 200 stores, nearly $2 billion in revenues, well over $0.5 billion in adjusted EBITDA, and a presence across most of the U.S.
Still, we believe there is meaningful room to profitably grow the store base in both existing and new markets. As shown on the left side, this industry has strong tailwinds and has seen rapid growth historically and is expected to see strong growth going forward as well. Recent earnings announcements by not only Dave & Buster's, but other companies in the sector clearly highlight the growth continuing in 2022. Looking more closely at visitor demographics, you can see how the combined company will cater to all these customer groups. We believe we will see the benefit of growth across all the segments. Family entertainment centers are a fast-growing source of entertainment at an affordable price. You can see on the chart on the left, we operate in multiple fast-growing categories, highlighting the importance and value of our differentiated, diversified offering.
The average transaction value on the right is another important aspect to consider. We operate at a sweet spot for our customers, giving them quality entertainment for the full family at an affordable price. One of the reasons for our success during recessionary periods is that a lot of the trade-down from the more expensive entertainment options benefit us, allowing us to maintain stable operations during downturns. Okay, now let's review the new Dave & Buster's financial profile. These charts highlight how both businesses have done very well through cycles, including during downturns. One of the primary reasons is our breadth and depth of offerings and our price points, ticket sizes versus other entertainment options. The combination will allow us to bring together learnings and best practices across both companies and create a platform that we believe is even more insulated through economic cycles.
Our amusement business has very limited variable cost at a gross margin level, and any positive change in mix towards amusements further increases our margin advantage. Our margin structure is unique and gives us an advantage over other concepts and provides downside protection. Our store base is extremely consistent and very profitable across both brands, with 100% of the stores being four-wall adjusted EBITDA positive. These stores are also well invested. As we previously announced, we have commenced a reinvestment program to refresh approximately 90 centers across the Dave & Buster's brand. This program will occur over approximately 3 years. Scope of the work will depend on the individual center, and we'll be continuously reevaluating based on returns and current economic conditions. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike, and he'll close us out with a deeper dive into the financials.
Thanks, Chris. The synergies in the transaction are straightforward and highly achievable in the near term. This is based on a comprehensive bottoms-up analysis of all functional areas. Note, both headquarters were located within the Dallas area, which created immediate synergies with respect to G&A. Other synergies we expect to see at the store level and procurement are purely based on the two platforms coming together, and we also expect to see some CapEx synergies as we leverage our scale to negotiate better contractor costs and leverage Dave & Buster's amusement refurbishment program for Main Event as well. Add to this the opportunities in technology implementation, customer loyalty programs, international expansion, and leveraging the Dave & Buster's infrastructure in regions where Main Event has no current presence, such as in California and the Northeast, will provide further growth and value creation opportunities in the future.
Our new store models are exceptional and return more than 25%-30% on a cash-on-cash basis if you look across both concepts. Dave & Buster's experience and synergies can help Main Event lower its development costs while increasing margins and returns. In the end, Main Event should benefit from being inside of a larger organization from a cost perspective, and Dave & Buster's will benefit from expanding its operations by adding Main Event to the portfolio. Given how lucrative these models are, we expect to leverage the best of both brands and keep driving profitable growth for this company going forward.
We anticipate unit growth of approximately 10-12 stores at Dave & Buster's and 6-8 at Main Event in the near future, as these are centers that are currently under construction or some form of advanced phase of development over the next 12-18 months. As we've previously stated, we have flexibility to dial up or down our growth CapEx spend to adjust to any economic cycle. We've included a couple of supplementary schedules in the appendix to provide pro forma quarterly view of our trailing twelve months, along with a summarized view of our debt structure, which includes a new $500 million revolver and it's undrawn and a pro forma net leverage ratio of 2.2x. As you can see, we are clearly sitting in a strong financial position with ample liquidity. That concludes our prepared remarks.
We'll hand it back over to the operator to open it up for Q&A.
Thank you. We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Today's first question comes from Andy Barish at Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you.
In terms of sort of the, you know, the Main Event recovery, trajectory being, you know, a little bit faster than Dave & Buster's and kind of why you think that's happened over the last 12, 18 months?
Yeah, sure. Hey, Andy. Great to hear your voice again. Well, first, you know, what I'll say is that we're very pleased with the performance of both brands. You know, I'm very privileged and honored to be in this position today to be able to carry the torch forward and be in a position where both brands are seeing real strength in the business. As it relates to Main Event, what I'll tell you is a couple of things. One, we were very fortunate to be in a position where we retained the vast majority of our workforce during the temporary shutdown, and that put us in a position to be able to execute very quickly.
We had our training program, you know, once we started to reopen our centers all over the country, was just simply kind of a refresher. Our teams were highly engaged and ready to serve. We were able to hit the ground running very quickly in terms of the guest experience. Secondly, during the temporary shutdown, we were able to spend our time rethinking the entire service model, and use that as an opportunity to kind of iron out, you know, a few wrinkles and which put us in even better position to execute against the guest experience. Finally, just our geographical footprint.
You know, the Main Event geographical footprint is, you know, heavily weighted in the southern U.S., which benefited the brand from a more robust recovery than in more COVID-restricted regions in the U.S.
Great. Really appreciate that. Then just one quick follow-up on kind of supporting that platform that pipeline for growth that Mike highlighted. How do you view, you know, sort of your human capital pipeline at this stage? You know, how comfortable are you kind of, you know, continuing to see these strong openings supported by great teams?
I mean, we feel very good about it. On the human capital side, we're in a very strong position on both brands. You know, the D&B side of things, you know, the brand's been growing at a healthy pace for a very long period of time and has incredible depth at all operating levels, and then here at the support center. I would say on the Main Event side as well, you know, incredible depth and breadth across all levels of the organization. We are sitting in, you know, an extremely strong position to continue that growth and execute on new store openings.
Thank you.
Yes.
Our next question today comes from Andrew Strelzik at BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, great. Thanks for taking the questions and great to hear the overview certainly. My first question, you know, I guess we have management coming from both sides here from a competitive perspective previously. I'm just curious if you could talk to kind of the overlap that you've experienced between the two brands over time. If a Main Event opens near a Dave & Buster's, how do you see that normally play out? Does that matter in kind of how you're thinking about balancing that, kind of from a go-to-market perspective going forward?
Yeah, sure. Andrew. You know, number one, we've coexisted in markets for decades. We're very comfortable growing both brands and know that both brands can cohabitate. We have countless data points to show that. I think what's important to know is, yes, there's overlap in terms of the amusement game side of the business, but the experiences at the core are different. Main Event is, you know, has more variety. It has a much bigger footprint. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, slightly on the positioning side, heavier focused on the family occasion. Main Event does significantly more birthday business. You're gonna see, you know, all of the branding, all the messaging within the center is very much at the heart of families.
On the Dave & Buster's side, you know, a slightly more heavier position on the young adult occasion. Yes, there's overlap in the product offering, but the experiences are really different. You know, that's something that we're just gonna continue to reinforce as we move forward.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. My other question, I know, you know, Kevin over the last several quarters has really focused on and harped on value creation. I guess, you know, you guys listed a number of different benefits to both of the brands as a combined entity. I guess if you could just maybe, you know, narrow in on the top couple that you think really are going to drive the value creation and kind of the timeline to which you think some of those things can start to be realized, in addition, obviously, to the synergies which are over the 12-18 months. Thank you.
Chris, maybe I can start on that, and then you can jump in with Mike and augment it. From a revenue synergy standpoint, we see lots of opportunities. I think for the most part, the story will continue to unfold as we report each quarter going forward, because we're really just digging in and getting settled. You know, just some of the casual things that make sense. We've got four locations that are Dave & Buster's locations, as an example, that are big and underutilized for Dave & Buster's, but they fit very perfectly as Main Event locations.
Chris and the team will continue to evaluate whether those four locations do they make sense being converted to Main Event and then enabling the Dave & Buster's side to open up to a. You heard Augusta, that's an unbelievable record we had in the first couple of weeks. It's way out of the park, blew anything we've had in any small store format leading up to that point. Maybe build a couple of small or medium-sized stores in the same market under the Dave & Buster's brand. You know, that's taking a brand and rejuvenating it with a new format, and then opening two more Dave & Buster's stores.
I think Chris touched on the loyalty and some of the other, you know, as you could imagine, taking and pushing forward with, you know, possibly in the future, thinking about a program that covers both brands and drives consumers across the board. Chris, you wanna maybe take it from there because there's so many. I don't wanna speak on your behalf.
Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. Thank you, Kevin. Well, listen, the first thing I'll say is, you know, the obvious one, which is just, you know, the synergies created from the transaction. We've already mentioned there's, you know, approximately $20 million of synergies that we believe we're confident we're gonna be able to capture. That doesn't. As we continue to get bigger, both brands get bigger, you know, there's more and more value from that that results through those synergies going forward, as opposed if we were operating separately. Strategically, there's considerable value creation that we see really throughout all areas of the business.
One, on investments that we're making on guest-facing technology, in order to drive more engagement with both brands, collect data analytics on consumer behavior, and then be able to use that data analytics to drive both brands. We see incredible upside in combining these two brands and leveraging the Power of 2. We see, you know, there's just in terms of shared best practices across both brands, there's incredible value there. As we look to start to grow internationally, and we've talked about that here in the Dave & Buster's side, and you saw we reaffirmed on our management team, you know, the importance of international growth going forward.
We think having two brands and taking both brands across the globe will allow us to capture value much faster than if we were doing it individually. You know, I think we're tremendously excited about this opportunity, both in terms of just bottom line value creation, but more importantly, just the strategic synergies that will happen through this combination. Really, you know, from this point forward, building a platform, you know, that can scale across multiple brands. You know, that there's a whole, you know, variety of ways that could actually create value, you know, much longer term from now.
Yeah. I think I'll just add one more thing to that. Just being in the chair for 6 months and walking into a company that's, you know, been in existence for 40 years, you get a fresh perspective on things. I think having the combination and a combined team of both Main Event and Dave & Buster's of the executive level is gonna bring that fresh set of eyes to look into both sets of businesses and both brands and really hone in on the best of the best and challenge each other in a very collaborative format. This transaction's 2 weeks old, and we're already starting to, you know, I don't wanna say question each other, but really kind of hone in on each other and ask the right questions and spark that creative thought process around how to do things differently and better.
I think that's just gonna propel us as we go forward, as just an underlying expansion of our operational excellence across the board, both at the store level, the shared service center side. I think there's just real tremendous upgrowth across all aspects of this business.
Hey, Mike, maybe you could touch on one comment I think you've made in the past that's really important about entering new markets, vis-a-vis, say, a California market, for Main Event.
Yeah. I think one of the aspects that I touched on one of the revenue synergies is our ability to leverage our infrastructure. I'll just give the example of, like, the state of California. In Southern California, we have over 10 locations. That means that we have 10 assistant general managers to select from to become the next general manager of that 11th store. That layers all the way through, from food and beverage to amusement, all the way down that list. That infrastructure, to one of the earlier questions from Andy about the human capital aspect of it, is just a tremendous asset for us to fuel the growth. Growing 12 to 20 stores a year is not gonna be a very difficult thing for us to have to overcome.
I think we've got a pipeline and plus the training programs that Main Event has put into place to create that next line of leaders. The combination of the two will be very meaningful and will help accelerate that growth into these new areas throughout the U.S.
Great. Thank you very much for all that, Michael. I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Chris O'Cull with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Hi, Chris. Congrats on the new role, and I look forward to talking with you again.
Thank you.
soon too.
Yeah, same here.
Michael, do you expect Main Event to be self-funding or free cash flow accretive to the company during the next 4 quarters with 6-8 openings?
Yes.
Can you elaborate on how accretive?
Very simple, yeah. No straightforward answer for you, but yes.
Can you elaborate on how accretive you expect it to be with 6-8 openings?
That would then get into the course of me giving guidance, which is not what we're in the business of doing at this point in time, just given everything that's in front of us. But we are very comfortable with the cash flow generation that will come from Main Event in addition to the cash flow that's being generated by Dave & Buster's. I've said before, as we look into the future and what stands in front of us, we have great flexibility to flex up and down accordingly to make sure that we are always maintaining a position of financial strength for this company on a go-forward basis.
You mentioned openings planned for next fiscal year, I think, and the ability to pull it back, like you just said, if the economic environment shifts. How many units would you expect to open if that were to happen?
We have plans right now that we're on 6 new stores to open up between now and the end of our fiscal year. 4 more Dave & Buster's, 2 Main Events. As we go through the planning process, you know, we're 9, 12, 16 months out on what that lineup looks like for next year. Then that's an opportunity that we can flex accordingly. That's just a decision that we'll make over the coming probably 4-6 months as we go out.
Okay, that's helpful. Just lastly, Chris, you mentioned that you refined the real estate strategy at Main Event. Can you walk through what that entailed and how it improved the returns?
Sure. No problem. My predecessor at Main Event, I believe did a tremendous job of reinventing the brand and putting it on a growth trajectory. However, when I stepped in the door, there was very little infrastructure at the senior team level, and he was, you know, just wearing many hats and, as a result, relied, you know, heavily on a broker network to make real estate decisions. My very first hire at Main Event was Chief Development Officer Les Leher, whom I've worked with previously and who's now on our team here at Dave & Buster's.
Putting Les in the place of Chief Development Officer allowed us to immediately, you know, put a strategic overlay in place on our real estate decisions. At the same time, we did a deep dive into the Main Event brand. It's been about 13 weeks, really getting in and understanding, you know, the consumer and understanding the demand space and, you know, our lane in which we wanted to position our business. What we did is we just simply combined, you know, the brand research that we were doing with the strategic overlay on real estate.
The combination of, you know, deep-rooted research into the consumer, understanding what it was gonna take for Main Event to win with deep experience on real estate and knowing, you know, the individual local markets and being able to negotiate significant lease, you know, favorable terms on our leases put us in a position to really ramp up our growth very quickly. When I stepped in the door, there was the board had shut down all real estate development because of some missteps that were made by the previous management team. We had to, you know to go from nothing to something took quite a bit of time, but it gave us the time to really put all the pieces in place and do it right.
I'm, you know, very happy to report that, you know, since then, every one of our openings has significantly exceeded our expectations. It's really just simply just, you know, putting the right level of sophistication in the organization.
Great. Thank you.
You bet.
Our next question today comes from Sharon Zackfia with William Blair. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Obviously you're new to the Dave & Buster's team, but you've had some time to think about it as the merger has been pending. I'm curious on how you think about Dave & Buster's relevancy to that core young adult demographic. Clearly, you've done a good job at Main Event, improving the relevancy to families. Are there similar opportunities that you see at Dave & Buster's? Secondarily, just curious if you have any data on what percent of customers overlap between the two brands.
Yep, sure. Hi, Sharon. The thing I'll tell you is the answer to your question is yes. I see the same opportunity at Dave & Buster's. I'll say, you know, Dave & Buster's has a very rich history. I believe the brand is extremely relevant in markets, and I think that's, you know, one of the reasons why Kevin and the team have been so successful in generating the sales growth that we're benefiting from today. There's strength in our numbers. This business is very relevant. I believe where their opportunity is to continue to build on this momentum is in just further solidifying, you know, that Dave & Buster's is the authority on young adult entertainment.
What we will do with this team is we're gonna kind of run through the same process that we did at Main Event, where let's not make assumptions, you know. Let's kind of do the proverbial measure twice, cut once. We have a lot of experience in this industry. We have a lot of opinions, but you know, let's make sure that we're validating all of that with real high-quality research. We're in the midst of doing that right now, just doing a really big deep dive into the business. Coming out of that, we will chart our path forward.
You know, sitting here today, I strongly believe that there is just more we can do on the branding side and the execution side out in our stores on being known as that authority. That's, you know, signaling the right market impressions. It's hiring the right people. It's, you know, having the right service model against, you know, that audience. Then ultimately, you know, having pulsing in a pipeline of entertainment that is right in the sweet spot of what that young adult experience is. I think, you know, given the penetration across the U.S. with the D&B brand and the marketing muscle that it has, there's a significant amount of upside when all that comes together.
In terms of how much overlap that there is in between the two brands, that's, you know, that level of information we just don't share publicly.
Okay. One follow-up. Do you have... Sorry if I missed this. Do you have an estimate on what the national white space potential is for Main Event?
Well, I'll tell you, we are very comfortable with you know, the growth that Mike walked you through at this point in time. You know, we feel very comfortable growing for many years to come at that level.
Okay, thank you.
You bet.
Our next question today comes from Brian Vaccaro with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and Chris, congratulations and look forward to working with you.
Thank you.
If you could just elaborate a little bit on your remarks regarding the turnaround that you executed at Main Event. What were some of the key specific levers that you pulled that drove the more significant improvements, whether it be special events or bowling or other categories within the business? A follow-up, and sorry if it was in one of the slides, but could you provide a comp update on Main Event? I think the last update that we had in our notes was from February. If you're able to do that would be great.
Sure. So I'll start, and I'll let Mike go through the comps update. Well, look, you know, I would say there are three primary things that we drove at Main Event that led to the significant growth in the business that really the momentum started to build about six months before the pandemic, and then just carried us through the pandemic once we started opening our centers and has continued through today. The three primary pillars were, one, brand positioning, really doing a deep dive, understanding, you know, the core brand positioning, what the brand attributes should be, and where we have the greatest opportunity to grow the business going forward. Number two is operational execution, and that's, you know, there's many sub pillars underneath that big one.
Number three was the real estate development, real estate strategy. It was, you know, simply just getting the positioning right, understanding what the, you know, what the right brand promise should be, that we should be communicating out in the marketplace, and then ensuring that our operating teams felt supported and that they were bought into the mission, and that they could bring that brand promise to life in a way that was very meaningful and authentic out in our centers all over the country.
Once we got that right, then we were able to start opening centers, you know, with a blank canvas, you know, where all of that came together, where we had the right location, we were hiring the right people that matched, you know, our brand positioning, and we designed, you know, the center to reinforce that positioning, and we developed a service model and training procedures to be able to deliver on that brand promise. It was, you know, I wouldn't say there was a silver bullet. I would say it was, you know, doing the fundamentals, the blocking and tackling, but doing it in a way that, you know, everyone in the entire organization played a role.
there was an incredible amount of passion around our mission and everyone understood, you know, how what we were doing and how it was connected, you know, from beginning to end. you know, I think here at Dave & Buster's, we're gonna do the same thing here. there's a lot, you know. We're starting from a very strong basis, a very strong baseline. the business is doing well, a rich history. you know, the team here is so passionate about our category and so proud of the work that they've been doing and the leadership position that they're in.
Now what we're gonna do is, you know, now that we have two brands under one umbrella, is we're just gonna clearly define, you know, the differences in both those brands and do the exact same thing that we did at Main Event. I'm excited about the future and look forward to continuing to give some reports to all of you. Mike, do you wanna give an update?
Yeah. On your question regarding comps. I'll give you information for what I'm gonna call Q2, which is our Q2 reporting period. Main Event on a standalone basis would be roughly at about 27% comps versus 2019. Dave & Buster's is roughly we're right at about 10% right now. On a combined basis for a full quarter, now granted, that includes about 8 weeks in which we did not own Main Event. On a combined basis, that would be pro forma of about a 13% increase, versus 2019 on the combined comp store sales basis.
Okay, great. I appreciate that. Mike, just to clarify, on the D&B side, you said you're right at about 10%. That's up through sort of last week?
That's the last 10 weeks, yes.
Through Monday.
Last 10 weeks. I recall, Sunday we get the report on Monday morning.
Okay. Okay, fantastic. Appreciate that. Last one for me, if I could. I think you said you expect within the synergy side, you expect $13 million of G&A synergies to be realized. What's the base of G&A before those synergies are realized we should think about on the Main Event side of the business? How much G&A run rate is in the business?
I would look at the pro formas and the appendix page. That's the baseline of what we have that we're using to calculate off of our synergies.
Okay. All right. Thank you. I'll pass it along.
All right. Bye.
Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Jake Bartlett at Truist. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking the questions and great to meet you, Chris. We appreciate the update. I do. My first question, you know, you've answered it a number of times, so it might be a little bit redundant, but I just wanna make sure I understand, you know, how the approach to marketing changes. You know, I think at Dave & Buster's, you know, still has roughly 40% of sales generated by families. I would imagine you wouldn't, you know, Dave & Buster's wouldn't be able to kind of abandon that consumer even though it would lean into the young adults. You know, I guess for each brand, how much will the marketing change, you know, going forward as a combined entity?
Yeah. No, I think that's a great question. Yeah. Nice to meet you and look forward to meeting you face-to-face sometime soon. The first thing I'll tell you is, you know, Main Event has a significant percentage of the business from adult occasions. So even though our core positioning is aimed at families, we still cater to adults. I think that's what's really important in these businesses is you cast a very wide net on all the different occasions, but you can't be all things to all people. You have to stand for something.
We believe at Main Event we have managed the business in a way to where we are the leader in young families with young children between the ages of 7 and 15, primarily. We don't alienate the adult occasion. The same thing holds true for Dave & Buster's. You are correct, 40% of the business is from families, and we intend to protect that. We're not gonna alienate families as we continue to reinforce that we're the authority on young adult entertainment. You just have to be very mindful in how you're doing it, and do it in a way to where you know you don't go too far over the extreme.
As I said before, these two brands can have coexisted in markets for decades. As the Main Event business has grown in the market, you know, we believe that that's been incremental growth. In these in location-based entertainment, these are low frequency businesses. You know, we're each, you know, our average frequency at Main Event is, you know, roughly 1.8 times, D&B is about the same. You know, you can easily coexist in a market where you're only getting 4 occasions over a 12-month period of time. The experience at Dave & Buster's is today and will continue to be different than the experience at Main Event.
It's just, it's simply a focus, and it's the type of entertainment offerings that we will roll out in the years to come. We will never go too far to where we alienate, you know, a core group of customers one way or the other. In terms of marketing, you know, I think. Again, I keep saying that, you know, Kevin and the team have already done a great job of getting real momentum in the Dave & Buster's business. I would not look for us to make rapid changes and material changes in the near term. We're gonna seek to understand first and continue this research that I mentioned. Then coming out of that research, we will determine the best path forward.
We intend to build upon the momentum and be really smart about it.
Great. That's helpful. I guess in the kind of spirit of that question, you know, and we haven't gotten an update on the sports betting, on fantasy sports, you know, whatever's coming there. I believe my expectation is that we would have heard something or something would have been finalized, you know, by now. It's a little later than, you know, we haven't heard anything new. Maybe an update there and, you know, whether you have a different perspective, you know, just in terms of kind of that tension of trying to serve a lot of different types of customers. Do you have a view that potentially, you know, sports betting is not appropriate for the Dave & Buster's brand?
No. Look, I'll give the brief update. We are continuing to work with outside parties. As we've said before, we're gonna get the right deal. We're not just gonna do any deal. The important aspect of this is about how we bring programming into Dave & Buster's. Although we could sign a deal today to be a normal affiliate and get a set dollar amount for every person we sign up for these apps, that's not the business that we wanna be in. We're not a professional affiliate gatherer for sports betting and online gaming.
What we are is about creating a watch environment for our customers to come in and enjoy sports viewing, the food, the beverages, and everything that goes along with it within the Dave & Buster's walls, which is why we made the investment in the WOW Walls, the sound systems and everything else, which you'll see a lot coming through as part of our advertising and promotional campaigns as we get closer to the NFL football season. Until we get a deal that makes sense for us, that meets our needs, you know, we're just gonna continue to move down the path of working through with the various different apps and providers for that.
From a go-forward perspective, as I said, it is really part of the fabric of what we want to do to drive programming to get more traffic into the four walls of a Dave & Buster's. I believe that would still apply for the Main Event side, but that's something that as part of our strategy and go-forward plans, that will be evaluated as we go on a go-forward basis.
Great. Then my last question, very helpful on the quarter-to-date or the, you know, update of 10%, year-to-date Dave & Buster's 27% Main Event. Looks like that 27% is pretty consistent from May, so that's encouraging that, you know, that it's held. In Dave & Buster's a slight deceleration, if I got that right. You know, if you could help us just understand the month-to-month or any sort of trajectory of the business, you know, as we're seeing, you know, some pressure, you know, in the restaurant industry, specific decelerations there.
You know, any kind of color on, you know, how confident you are that both these businesses are, you know, or maybe, you know, if they are being impacted by the consumer slowdown, maybe by how much. Any commentary on the kind of month-to-month trend and just your view of how, you know, how both of these brands would fare in a slowing consumer environment.
Yeah, look, I'll comment on the Dave & Buster's side real quickly. If you remember, we did the Eat & Play Combo, which gave us that number of about 21.5% for the month of April. When we got to May, there was some tailwind benefits that came through that from all the promotions, which gave us a number of about 12.5%. There is a little bit of, I think, of that honeymoon period that's kind of weaned off and we're now into that normal travel period in June, where people are on vacation, graduations have taken place. We've just seen that naturally come through as we've typically seen on a seasonal basis prior to that.
Just, I'm trying to do the math real quick, but it sounds like June would be kind of very low single digits if the math is right on that.
No. If with 10% for the overall period for the 2 months.
Oh, got it.
You've got one at 12.5% and call it, you know, I would say simple math of 8.5% gets you to the 10.
Yeah. Sorry. Got it. Right. Okay, I'll leave it there. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's question and answer session and today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.