All I really want from HHNO this year is as many original houses as possible.
I've only had the pleasure of visiting HHNO once, in 2011, so I don't know a whole lot more about it than what I've read on these boards.
I'm from LA so I've been attending HHNH since I was a kid in '97, pre and post hiatus.
I know we've had original houses before, but none of them were memorable except for Monsterquarium and La Llorona. What I really remember from our event is Freddy, Leatherface, Chucky, etc. My familiarity with these characters and their stories kills the scares for me a bit, last year's TCM maze being the exception. So imagine my delight when I see that the year I finally go bicoastal there's only one IP based house, especially since it ended up being 1000x better than our version of it. The only house that let me down the whole night was Saws 'N Steam. I honestly didn't get the story and there was a major lack of actors when I went through, but the rest of the houses were amazing. I got major scares in Nevermore and Nightingales, and the 3D in The Inn Between played so well with the actors and scares. I just loved it all.
Lurking the boards last year I was pretty surprised to see you guys ended up with alot of the same mazes as us. We had TWD (which was just ok as the TWD Terror Tram experience outshined it), Silent Hill, Alice Cooper Goes To Hell, a sequel to Welcome to My Nightmare (which you ended up with), and a classic monster house that was shameful at best (you guys are super lucky you got your cool tribute house and not our craptastic dubstep one).
Seeing that makes me nervous there will be a lack of original houses this year and that half of your event will be extremely similar to ours.
Whether it was simply better, or because it was my first time, HHN 21 topped any of the HHNs I've been to growing up. Except for '97 as that was my first and I will always hold the nightmares it caused a six year old me dear.