I called ahead of time about the Hasbro tour, and it turned out that I could go in Chrissy’s place. They gave us a wristband at the time of registration, and that was all I needed to go on the tour. There would be two tours on Friday, and my group was leaving at 7 AM. That meant that I would have to wake up at 6 AM (after getting back from the movie at 1:30 AM the night before), but I was happy to get a chance to go. Chrissy would be waiting in the horrendously long exclusive line while I was away.

The tour was very informative, and I took a lot of pictures. We went into the molding factory to see how new toy concepts were turned into prototypes, but photography was banned in there. We went into the marketing room where new ideas are pitched and saw a presentation on how the current marketing campaign got started. The Classics line was only supposed to be a nostalgia-building leading up to the movie line, but it has been so popular that they now plan to carry it forward after the movie line ends.
The tour ended with a short presentation on items that never made it to production. There were some very rare and mythic (never thought to have existed) figures in prototype stages behind glass. They also said that the 6-inch Titanium line was being scrapped, and they had the last four (and arguable the coolest) figures in prototype stage on display. War Within Bumblebee was neat, but the G1 Cosmos figure was awesome, and they even had a G1 Arcee figure (would have been the first figure of her classic styling). I guess we’ll never see those.
After the tour, I got a coke and some chips to eat outside. The bus was a little slower on the way back than on the way in, since traffic had since picked up. Chrissy called me twice while I was on the bus, since she was almost to the front of the exclusives line. It all worked out, since the bus pulled up right in front of the convention center and I was able to get upstairs quickly enough to meet Chrissy at the front of the line, just before the sales people breaked for lunch.