Our expenses in the 3rd and 4th quarters are not evenly split as the revenue is. This is because of generally low power usage in the 4th Quarter. About 55% of our 3rd and 4th quarter expenses are incurred in the 3rd Quarter. In addition approximately 65% of all of our expenses are incurred in the 1st, the 3rd and the 4th quarters. Our interest expense in the 3rd Quarter will not be fully reflective of the interest savings because of the timing of our debt pay down. I am going to turn it back to Tim now, to close briefly before questions and answers.
Tim Boyd, President and C.E.O. Peak Resorts.
Thank you Steve. Basically, we believe, with the successful implementation of our IPO, Peak Resorts is now poised to move to a new level of growth. Our portfolio offers close proximity to our customer base, strong and stable pre-season sales and a large percentage of the beginner skier market which translates to a greater usage of all our different services. With an attractive dividend, a lower cost of capital, more liquidity and a large landscape of acquisition targets, we believe Peak has the ability to offer its shareholders a significant value. We believe all these factors combined represent a bright future for Peak Resorts. With that, I would like to turn it over to Dan now for Q & A.
Operator
We will now begin the questions-and-answers session. To ask your question, you may press * then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your hand set before pressing the key. If at any time your question has not been addressed and you would like to withdraw to your question, please press *, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble a roster. Our first question comes from Barton Crockett of FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Barton Crockett, FBR Capital Markets.
Ok. Great. Thanks for taking the question, and, I guess the first thing I wanted to ask about was a little bit more color on what you have seen historically with the kind of varied ability of the Midwest skiers, tighter weather, so you say that in the first two months you are down and that is because you open a little bit late in the Midwest but January is the big part of the quarter. Reminiscences of the past when you have gotten a late start, the big Midwest resorts, and then, done really well on the quarter just because people have showed up, I think, you may have had an incident. Martin Luther King weekend at Mad River – I was trying to think what you talk historically about? Your ability to make up these type of shortfalls that we are saying right here.
Tim Boyd, President and C.E.O. Peak Resorts.
Yeah, yeah, that’s basically true. The Midwest resorts generally have a window of opening that is really a lot wider than the Northeastern resorts. That window can be anywhere from the 10th of December all the way until the first week of January. Last year, for instance, it was an early opening for our Midwest resorts, most of them got opened in the December 10 to 12 range. This year those resorts are in the later of that range. Most of them got opened towards the last day of December.
But generally, the Midwestern resorts are better positioned to overcome these early season deficits and the reason for that is that generally when you have a sluggish start you have a certain amount of pent up demand and all the Midwestern resorts are day operations, and because they are day operations and they are in close proximity to the customer base, they have the ability to have a more robust weekday business, they have a stronger program business which consists of schools and clubs and of course we have night skiing at all those operations. So basically, the Midwest resorts have a much better opportunity, or, they have more opportunity to make up that early season deficit than an overnight, drive or destination resort would, that has to rely primarily on the weekends.
