Alrighty, so here's my speculation and food for thought for the 50th.
What's officially known at the moment is Dark Ride, Pumpkin Eater and The Hollow are no more. It's pretty safe to speculate that we're getting at least two new mazes and one new scare zone. Naturally due to the original nature of the event, only the creative team knows what the replacements are, we really can't speculate what's coming...unless we take something particular into account, more on that later...
On the rumor side, there's a rumor the creative team wants to provide more new offerings on top of the new scare zone and two mazes. So that begs the question, what could possibly happen for them to add more new things for next year? A shortlist for me that comes to mind is...
- Using a former maze location that hasn't been used in a while, such as the Bumper Cars.
- Quietly closing another maze such as Dark Entities.
- A new overlay for the Log Ride.
- Better yet, putting live actors back in the Log Ride, Mine Ride or both. (Granted, I fully understand why they stopped doing that. But that would be a nice thing to have just for the 50th.)
- A Hanging. Pre-face, NOT the pop culture one. I feel that one is truly good and dead. If I'm proven wrong, so be it. But as of right now, I just don't see it coming back. Now the Midnight Witch Hanging on the other hand...that is something that is firmly tied to Ghost Town and the lore of the Green Witch. They've brought it back before, and I can see them bringing it back for the 50th.
That's just a handful of things that could possibly be done to add to the event, I wouldn't mind this rumor being true since even additions for the 50th sounds like a great idea!
Speaking of which, I think something people might be thinking with it being a big anniversary year is...will there be an Anniversary Maze a la' XXV (25) Years of Fears? Honestly, I hope not! Anniversary mazes like that are honestly hard to pull off for a variety of factors, what years do you represent and are you able to have a good representation of the whole event and not a focus on one year in particular (Looking at you, Horror Nights: The Hallow'd Past (But mostly 2008).) etc. Another factor is Knott's themselves weren't fond of 25 years of fears, partly due to the reasons I listed, and they've openly mentioned that older mazes represented in the maze just didn't land with the 1997 audience. I feel there's a better way to have a sort of anniversary maze, and they've actually done it before...which brings up my main food for thought this year...
So! An anniversary type concept they've done before was taking a classic maze and revamping it a la' Dominion of the Damned. I felt that was pretty well done all things considered, and I think it's a better option than trying to cram who-knows-how-many mazes into one. And when it comes to Classic Scary Farm Mazes, you probably have a shortlist in your head of what those are. *Yet Another Pre-Face* They're probably not gonna' return to The Asylum, so best toss that from your head. But hey, that makes the shortlist even shorter!
Now with those classic Scary Farm Mazes in mind, take this into account! Knott's has made it pretty clear when it comes to mazes that are more inside the park, they like having it fit the theme of whatever scare zone it's in. (eg: Origins in Ghost Town, Pumpkin Eater in the Hollow, Dark Ride and Mesmer in CarnEvil.)
Now with whatever's replacing Pumpkin Eater, it's currently in a blank state since the Hollow is gone. So that is maze is gonna' be themed to whatever the new scare zone is. Now if they decide to do a throwback and have the return of The Gauntlet, then The Inquisition is right there. (Granted I wouldn't place Inquisition as a classic maze, but it's a fitting theme for the Gauntlet. I would also say Lore of the Vampire, but we've already done Dominion of the Damned, and we've got new vamps with Bloodline.)
That leaves us with the Boardwalk Ballroom, right in CarnEvil. We've got Mesmer taking care of the Sideshow aspect with a touch of Freaks here and there. And I think we all know what Classic Scary Farm Maze could fit right in, maybe not in its original form since lord that looked massive, but doesn't it seem like a fitting time for the return of C3 (aka Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns)?
Well, maybe-maybe not. There's one more little factor to this, and that's the question if they would replace a Clown Maze with another Clown Maze so soon? Technically, they did wait a year between Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns from Outer Space in 3-D and Killer Clown Kollege, but KCK failed to pass and immediately got replaced by Uncle Bobo's Big Top of the Bizarre. However after Uncle Bobo's, there was a 4 year hiatus of Clown Mazes until Dark Ride. If they don't wanna' wait, a return of C3 is within the realm of possibility. But if there is a hiatus...it hit me that something like The Doll Factory could fit to some degree...once again, some food for thought.