Ardent Leisure, the owner of the Dreamworld theme park, has revealed a fall of 34.3 per cent in revenue at its parks which were forced to close briefly during the recent heavy rain on the Gold Coast from Cyclone Debbie that hit in March.

Despite good visitation numbers during the first three months of the year, Dreamworld's revenue was $3.1 million down on the previous corresponding period.

According to the group, in its third quarter update for the 2016-17 financial year, from March 1 to 24, the Gold Coast experienced a 159 per cent increase in total rainfall versus the same time a year ago, including greater rainfall occurring on weekend days.

The update comes two weeks after Gary Weiss' Ariadne Group emerged as a 6.85 per cent shareholder, sparking suggestions of corporate activity. Mr Weiss has denied the speculation, saying he would "work with Ardent" to help improve the business.

Having lost about 4.1 per cent when the update was released Monday morning, Ardent's share price regained some ground to close up .02¢ to $1.96.

Ardent Leisure's chief executive Deborah Thomas said the recent unfavourable weather negatively impacted the general recovery trend at the park, since the tragedy in late October 2016, where four people died after a malfunction with the 'Thunder River Rapids' ride.

Ms Thomas said the recent cyclone that impacted the East Coast of Australia resulted in a closure of Dreamworld and SkyPoint for one day in late March, however no damage or flooding occurred.

"The group believes the overall recovery of theme parks remains on track," Ms Thomas said in a statement.

"The group has undertaken a number of initiatives in the lead up to the Easter and school holiday trading period, including developing strong retail offers as part of the new brand positioning campaign, 'Let your imagination play'."

Ms Thomas added that the LEGO certified store is expected to perform strongly, supported by the release of the new Batman LEGO movie.

Ardent also revealed that its Main Event business, which is considered the growth engine, has recorded unaudited revenues of $61.5 million for the three months ending March 31, being a 25.1 per cent rise on the previous corresponding period.

But there were concerns from analysts about the group's Main Event Constant Centre sales in the US, which decreased 2.5 per cent. The constant centres include centres that have been open for at least 18 months at the beginning of the current financial year. As at the end of the third quarter, Main Event had 19 constant centres, comprising nine older format legacy centres and 10 new format centres.

Ms Thomas said Main Event experienced competitive pressure in several markets and a challenging consumer discretionary spending environment in Texas, where the bulk of the centres are located.

As a result, Ardent has decided to drop the number of centres opening from 11 to eight Main Event centres in 2018, in order to increase "management focus on strategies to improve constant centre growth and refurbishments".

"The group expects the pace of new builds will re-accelerate in the 2019 financial year. The longer-term target of 200 Main Events centres remain unchanged," Ms Thomas said.

Morgans, who was one of the Ardent float advisors with Bell Potter, said after the Ardent interim results in February, that the Main Event Constant Centre (ME CC) performance remains well below expectations.

"At this stage, we need to see evidence of CC growth being positive before recommending the stock. The growth proposition of Main Event, underpinned by the material store rollout program, is somewhat under question until comparative sales improve in our view," the broker said.

"The key risks to our target price are competitive pressure in all businesses, a slower-than expected rollout of and/or lower returns from new Main Event centres, lack of organic revenue growth within Main Event and negative earnings, liability and further valuation impact resulting from the Dreamworld incident."

Ardent is due to change its name to Main Event in May, which was approved by shareholders at the October 2016 annual general meeting.