Dreamworld’s Thunder River Rapid tragedy continues to haunt Village Roadshow’s Gold Coast theme parks with earnings down more than half of the level they were prior to the incident.
In 2016, four people died when the raft they were riding on capsized at the Gold Coast theme park.
In the eight fiscal years leading up to the tragedy, Village Roadshow’s theme parks averaged annual EBITDA of $86 million. This dropped to $55 million in FY17 and $41 million in FY18.
The tragedy was further marred by poor public communications and crisis management from parent company Ardent in the aftermath of the event, particularly around communicating details to the victims’ families, not postponing an AGM at the time, and an apparent lack of authenticity.
Village Roadshow said that there are signs of improvement, including strong ticket sales in July.
The entertainment group also reported low sales for its cinema exhibition division due to a lack of quality titles in the last six months of 2017.
Overall, the entertainment group reported a loss after tax $3.4 million, which is nearly half of the loss in FY17.
In July Village Roadshow went into a trading halt as the company continued to scrabble to generate further capital to curb its debt.
In an investor presentation at the time, the company revealed further plans to increase profitability and boost its cash flow problems.
Greater investment in local content was a focal point of its distribution strategy, which is housed under the Roadshow Entertainment side of the business.
The company also stated that greater investment in areas such as TV production was essential, pointing to the recent, Logie award-winning Stan drama, Romper Stomper, which Roadshow had a hand in developing, as an example.
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