Let's see...
* For the board, see if white or black squares on concrete, grass, carpet, or other solid color surface will do. Tape the corners of the squares together. On grass, nail in white squares. If you're using white squares, you can save $ by using rectangular squares, aka. sheets of paper. The best surface is office carpet with masking tape; you should be able to get away with ignoring the color of the squares.
* As for rank, cut out "headbands" or create paper hats with the rank symbol cut out. You can also have PVP pipe poles with the rank symbol at the ends; each person holds their pole upright.
* Use megaphone to announce chess moves, so that the cosplayers know where to move. And make sure the cosplays know how to move, lol. You may want a moderator to help make sure the cosplayers moved correctly. You may also want to bring along chess sets so the chess players know where the pieces are.
* Just for aesthetics sake, have the cosplay match the rank. People cosplaying duplicates can go in the back rank.
Here's an image from The Prisoner, which had an ep with human chess:
http://www.chessgraphics.net/jpg/chess10.jpg
Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^
You are very cool. =D
The rankings will most likely be denoted with signs that people can wave around, like picket signs. That'd be so much easier than PVC, not to mention cheaper.
The chessboard itself will be posterboards (that are free, much to my delight) taped together. The board will most likely come in seperate folding pieces, for easy transportation and storage.
A megaphone would be nice - though, I'd need someone to donate that. I don't have one of my own. I was also planning on having a more normal sized chessboard be brought along, so the players have a better view of their playing field. Also, as I know many people (myself included) do not know the technical names of the spaces on the board, I think we'll have to dumb down the moves - like, knight Sakura, go up three and one to the left.
A wide variety of cosplays would be nice. I think that there will be only one cosplayer of any character on the board at a time. I'll have to think about variations in costume (like Cardcaptor Sakura's many outfits), but those might be acceptable.
Umm. Yes. On that note, when you sign up for a position, kindly include what you think you'll be cosplaying on that day. Thank you.