And thats why Funpub spend so much of their resource on developing toys rather than making sure the convention is a cracker. it's a self perpetuating cycle.
In much the same way that Transformers itself was a show and comic created to sell toys, the main difference being that Hasbro have realised that you need to keep it fresh and the entertainment side of the marketing has to be good, ala Prime and Animated.
Well, that's unexpected. perhaps they are picking up on the Pirate crew from the last Novel that might be interesting, only problem being that there's already a toy of the Captain at retail.