The only possible mechanism for a fee surge is a new fad based on OP_RETURN NFTs, for whatever reason. Often fads only appear "because something is new", and that could be the case here as part of the "social" effect I mentioned. I think it's quite unlikely though.
I think its definitely going to happen. There will be some 'cabal' of influencers on Twitter that will rope their sheep into buying them ala Udi Werthimer or Eric Wall. The only problem for those pushing the new OP_RETURN NFTs is that they are competing with all these other new BTC-based protocols, like Alkanes.
The NFT hype has consolidated a lot, and for the (probably very small) public who wants to buy "a NFT on the OG Bitcoin chain!!!!!" there are a large number of NFTs from the Ordinals wave waiting for buyers. 
Having studied this particular niche market for the past few years, I believe that most "sub-10k" inscriptions (ordinals based on the first 10k inscriptions) will be able to attract buyers well into the future, for their novelty that they were among the "first" -- the millions that came after this, probably not so much.