Before I speculate, I have some concerns I must share regarding next year, especially since it is supposed to be the "off" year (Get ready, it's a long post):
Here's the most obvious: Please, please, please, please, PLEASE for the love of all that is right.....STOP. THE. BLACK. WALLS. Just STOP. It's extremely frustrating to see some nicely detailed rooms get chopped up with long, drawn out black walls (Lookin' at TrT and Polt). This has been an ongoing issue since they have added another house and it really needs to stop. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad this year, but with there being a high probability of Monsters and Stranger Things coming back to reuse those sets materials and from alcohol sales, they should have a solid amount of $$$$ to cover those up. That brings me to:
The house count: It's perfectly fine as is. Don't add to it. With the extra money from alcohol that came in, I'm sure Murdy will be extremely tempted to add a house. If by some chance TWD does leave before HHN next year, I'm sure it will be extremely tempting. I urge you Murdy, no matter what, please DON'T. Look how that turned out last year. I really don't want anymore black walls. Maybe when virtually every night is packed, maybe it will be time to expand. But for now, don't. Quality has really taken a hit recently.
Terror Tram: Either do something good and creative with this or just dump it. Seeing that there was a queue line before the scarecrow section gave me an idea that they should have mini "mazes" through each section; for example: the "Nightmarez" section at the end of tram, the tomb scene in Monsters before entering the windmill, and the cabin on the Crystal Lake trail from WB's event. Add some audio trigger scares in there, add a sheet maze somewhere outside, and have those walk-in shipping containers from '16 through WotW for set pieces and noise constraints and you're golden. Tram may be severely limited, but that can do more with this to make it descent. Don't give me this BS about neighbors when you have chainsaws everywhere out there.
Scarezones: Admittedly, they were better this year for sure. I feel like they should model after Orlando for how their scarezones are (Of course, baring in mind space). I would love to see a scarezone like the one Fright Fest has in front of Riddler's go out in metro. I would like to see their own take on it. Of course, I would love them to be able to use the entire strip of Metro for a scarezone, but money-wise that'd be unrealistic. They need that cash to stop the black walls.
For Pete's sake, just open Potter. Make a Dementor scarezone and night show like Japan does. That would seriously jack up capacity and get more people to come. You can argue that people won't want to stay during the day, but now there's a lot to do at HHN. Maybe people will want to stay to get rides out of the way before doing houses. Maybe they will want to see Minions, WaterWorld, and the tour before going to HHN. There will be folks that will want to knock stuff out to have more time to see houses and Jabawockeez. There's still some stuff you can do that you can't do outside of HHN. More capacity = more people spending money = more money to cover up those black walls.
Finally, change the scares. Please. Not every scare has to have a strobe light. Try scares from above, new hidden boo holes, make the scares less obvious. Again, follow Orlando's example!
I've said all this knowing all of this will likely fall on deaf ears. People will still go regardless of these suggestions, but once word of mouth spreads about how much better it can get, they're missing out on so much money. I thought Fright Fest was way scarier (Yes, freaking Six Flags) than HHN this year and so was Knott's creative content. Everywhere you see, there are so many haunts that have taken everything HHN has done and have done them just as good, if not BETTER. But HHN chooses to remain dormant with an "eh, that's good enough" attitude. They better be careful because I overhear people at HHN and different events how much they prefer other events. It will get to a point where people won't really bother much with HHN of they keep this nonsense up with reusing themes a million times and giving us black walls. It's gotten to the point where I'm not that excited for future events anymore because they've lost my trust on doing those properties justice.
With that said, here's my speculated line-up:
-Killer Klownz
-Hellraiser
-Halloween (New one or the fifth one)
-Universal Monsters 2.0
-Stranger Things season 2
-Haunting of Hill House (This better go in the sound stage)
-Happy Death Day 2U (Ewwww)
-Zombieland Terror Tram (Though I could see Purge being more likely)
I don't see the Thing happening if Hellraiser is coming...unless they add another house, which I hope they DON'T do.