New Trading Card Game Convention Draws Fans To Waite Park

WAITE PARK (WJON News) -- A new convention made its debut in Waite Park this weekend. RipCon took place at the Park Event Center from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. RipCon is a trading card game (TCG) event featuring Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Sports Cards, and more.

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Who put on the event?

The event was put on by the company RippinItRaw, which is owned by Sauk Rapids-Rice graduates Hunter Branson and Ben Kotula. Branson says they were a little nervous about starting RipCon in St. Cloud, so they tried to get the word out everywhere:

"We brought flyers to Alexandria, Detroit Lakes, Brainerd, Duluth, actually, I went all the way to the Wisconsin Dells with flyers, which is pretty crazy, obviously down in the cities as well, so we're just hoping the turnout is as best as it can be."

Branson says vendors signed on slowly at first, but by the time of the show, they had 85 tables filled. RipCon had hourly raffles too, and brought in fans of all ages looking to add to their collection.

How did RippinItRaw get its start?

Branson says  he and Kotula were both working in insurance when a video they did opening a Pokémon pack sparked the idea to start their own business:

"We did a video of opening the pack, put it on TikTok, it got like 655,000 views, over 24,000 likes, or something like that, and then we were just like wow this is crazy and then it just got us thinking how do we keep rolling this and let's make a business and we came up with the name RippinItRaw, got an LLC started."

He says they hope to open their shop soon, and he can't think of anything better than running a business with his best friend, Kotula. Branson says the turnout was great, and they hope the event grows for years to come.

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