Cosplay Chess Animazement 2007
Hawkeye
Animazement has never seen the likes of something quite so grand as Cosplay Chess. Essentially you take cosplayers in various outfits, assign them a chess piece and then go have them go stand in their spot on the giant chess board (this year it was caution tape mapped out to make a grid). Once the scene is set, two opponents, one for good and one for evil duke it out on a smaller chess board and the live pieces move accordingly. It was like watching something from a movie, perhaps like the Battle Chess in Harry Potter.
It all went pretty smoothly, but having never done this before Daniel the head coordinator and her assistant Andy had their work cut out for them. Andy was kind enough to answer a few questions to give us an inside look on how it all came together.
[u]Interview with Andy Ram[/u]
FMA WarCry: How did you get the idea for Cosplay Chess?
Andy: We’d watched a few matches of Cosplay Chess online from other conventions and we decided that we really needed to bring it down to the south. This will be the first match ever held in the south at any con.
FMA WarCry: Are you expecting to bring it back next year and the years to come?
Andy: We’re hoping to make this an annual event, so we’re trying very hard to make sure this one’s well organized. Hopefully next year we’ll also have more time so we can have a lot more fun with it.
FMA WarCry: Are you thinking in the future of making an actual giant chess board to bring in?
Andy: We’re hoping so, the first year we had a small budget. Also we want to make sure it’s worth it, if its repetitive then it will be, if it turns out to be a one time thing then it’s not.
FMA WarCry: What’s been the most challenging thing during the setup?
Andy: The most challenging thing is that everyone wants to be either king or queen but half the pieces are pawns.
FMA WarCry: So you have a lot of trouble finding people willing to be pawns?
Andy: Not so much trouble but we did have an occasionally person throwing a really large fit which would cause difficulties and of course it added extra stress to the job. We basically told them that is they didn’t want to participate with what ever piece we could get them that we’d just have to find someone else.
FMA WarCry: Will you be grabbing cosplayers form the crowd to play pieces if people don’t show up?
Andy: We have it set up so people who have pre-registered with us have their spot reserved for them. If they don’t show up on time for our introduction then their spot is free to be given away.
This event was an utter joy to watch. When ever a piece was to take out another piece all of the cosplayers would duck save for the two who were fighting it out. And then in slow motion action they would defeat their foes or be defeated. My only complaint is that I wish the cosplayers would have also lowered their balloons when they ducked, it was a bit hard seeing the action sometimes because of the sea of black and white balloons defining the sides. Aside from that this was brilliant production and an epic war of good and evil and I hope they get to do it again next year.
If there are any name corrections or spelling corrections of names please email me at: [email protected]
