CenterStage: Putting Guests' Photos on the Big Screen, Live

The problem

At a wedding, a gala, or a community festival, guests are already taking photos and videos all night. Almost none of it is seen by anyone else in the room. Animatic Media wanted to change that: let guests share photos, short videos, and comments from their phones and put them up on the big screen while the event is happening.

The idea is simple. The hard part is everything around it. A guest at a reception won't download an app or create an account. A host can't risk something inappropriate appearing on a projector in front of every guest. And a planner running several events needs a product they can sign up for, pay for, and manage on their own. That's CenterStage.

My role

I designed and built CenterStage end to end for Animatic Media, and I still maintain it. That meant shaping the product with the client, from features to how the plans work, designing the guest, host, and display experiences, and engineering all of it: the frontend, backend, real-time data, accounts, and the entire Stripe checkout and payment system. It runs on Next.js, Supabase, Stripe, and Vercel, and I built it with agentic development using Claude Code, which is how one person took it from concept to production quickly.

Key decisions

No app, no account, no friction for guests. Guests scan a QR code in the room and land straight in a page where they can submit a photo, a short video, or a comment from any phone. No download, no sign-up. Every extra step at a party loses people, so the guest flow is as short as I could make it, and uploads have to work for photos and video on whatever phone someone happens to be holding.

Event planners can open up a social campaign to their attendees and watch the feed flow in.

The host always decides what's on screen. Nothing goes straight to the big screen. Every submission lands in a review queue, and the host or their admins approve what the room sees. Getting that queue right was one of the hardest parts: it has to be fast enough to keep up with a busy room, simple enough to use on a phone in the middle of an event, and shareable, so hosts can invite admins to help, which matters for agencies running more than one event.

Make the big screen feel live. Approved submissions show up on slideshow and collage displays built for projectors, TVs, and LED walls. I used Supabase's real-time data so new content appears on screen as soon as it's approved, without anyone refreshing anything. A display that freezes or lags in front of a full room is the failure people remember, so reliability mattered more than anything flashy.

Treat billing as part of the product. I set up the whole Stripe checkout and payment system: subscriptions, plans, and the flow from sign-up to paying customer, alongside OAuth sign-in and admin invites. Planners can go from finding CenterStage to running an event without talking to anyone, which is what lets a small company sell a product like this at all.

Full Stripe configuration and integration

Let hosts make it theirs. Every event can have its own custom URL, backgrounds, and presentation settings, so it looks like part of the event rather than a third-party tool. After the event, hosts can download everything guests shared for recaps, social media, or marketing.

What happened

• CenterStage is live at centerstagenow.com and has been used at real events.
• It has paying customers on Stripe subscriptions.
• It went from concept to production fast, built by one person with agentic development.
• I continue to maintain and improve it.

What I'd do next

The next step is more ways for guests to take part beyond photos, video, and comments, and better tools for planners who run many events, so managing the tenth event is as easy as the first.

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