One month before showtime, I landed a freelance gig as Production Manager and Stage Manager for the 2025 MOVE Chamber Conference at Capital One Hall. A connection came through, and I was the glue between the MOVE Chamber team and the Capital One Hall production crew.

I’ve spent years running one-man shows. ATEM switcher, driving every camera, setting up every cable, being everything all at once. It works. I’ve made it work. But walking into Capital One Hall and seeing a real production setup? That was something else.

Every single thing was humming wonderfully. The Aquilon switcher they were using costs $145k. That’s not flex, that’s bulletproof 4K that just works (so many inputs!). Proper networking. Proper wiring. Everything labeled. Everything ready. When they needed to switch from one thing to another, they had the technical capability to do it instantly. The crew was excellent. When I mentioned making global announcements in the hall, they set up a “ding” button for me on the fly using Bitfocus Companion. Just like that. That’s the kind of competency that makes you better at your job.

I also realized there’s power in being the dedicated person instead of always feeling like you have to do everything. Watching everyone hum together, delegated and responsible, each person owning their domain—it was incredible to witness. Much of the production staff operates on freelance contracts, which was interesting to see in practice. Everyone knew their role, showed up ready, and executed.

Claude was threaded through everything I did. Run of Show generation. Spreadsheet organization. Timing management. Rewriting things on the spot. Getting client approvals faster. Drafting emails that got quicker responses. Organizing files and assets so everything was in the right place.

At night, I got a last minute agenda change. No problem. The morning of the event, I regenerated the entire Run of Show as a new PDF, printed it, and emailed it to everyone. Done. No stress. No second-guessing.

Last year’s team had set up solid documentation, but I needed to rewrite it to be more user-friendly and accessible to more people, more centralized in one Google Sheet. Claude helped me do that quickly without losing the essential data. And here’s what mattered most: Claude didn’t hallucinate. It didn’t make things up. At all. It supersized every decision I needed to make and made me feel reassured. When you’re managing a live event, that confidence is everything.

Mid-event, things got hairy. Virginia’s Governor was scheduled to speak, and arrived late, but his team informed us he had a call with the White House in just ten minutes. We had to move fast.

I started banging out messages through stagetimer.io (which, by the way, just works—love that tool). Adjusting timing. Coordinating transitions. Getting people off stage. Moving podium furniture live The production crew was in my ear on comms, and I was texting the MOVE Chamber team on the other side. We executed. The Governor felt prepared. We moved quickly. And it worked. That moment was control. That moment was what they hired me for.

At one point, I had to present to all the judges and speakers in front of the hall to keep them aligned on the agenda. They felt reassured, they understood their roles, and everyone was on the same page. That’s the job. Being solution-oriented, not panic-oriented. Making easy transitions with good onboarding. Being the person who can step up and say, “Here’s what’s happening, here’s what you need to do, we’ve got this.”

Here’s what wasn’t in my scope but I did anyway: One pitch team’s PowerPoint wasn’t loading videos the day of. I had to re-download the videos and restitch them in Final Cut Pro. Graphics on the fly. MOVE Chamber membership registration graphics. When we adjusted prayer times, I logged in and updated the app notifications. Tiny hiccups too like one misspelling on a card I made on the spot for a speaker and one missed card (also made on the fly). Not perfect, but done. That’s okay.

Why does this matter? Because understanding graphics, video, computers, AI, and production means I can interject and solve problems quickly. They don’t have to pull in another professional. I can be the one who handles it. That’s the generalist advantage. You can flex. You can move. You can download a LinkedIn video, edit in Final Cut Pro, switch to Canva for a graphic, use ffmpeg to re-encode video, extract assets from a PowerPoint using zip, use Replicate to clean up images with Seedance-4. It’s fun as hell to move like that.

With all this AI and tech, you’d think everything is digital. Nope.

Paper is power. Print, print, print. Get the black marker. Get the Paper Mate Felt tips and thank me later. I made sure everyone had physical copies of the run of show in their hands with pens. Conversations happen faster.

And backups on backups on backups. I never trust just technology. Chargers everywhere. My phone as a clock. Auto-reminders set on my Apple Watch so if I stepped out of the hall, it would buzz me. On my spreadsheets, I triple-link the same information for everyone. Same data, multiple places, all synced. Because everyone has their own ways of doing something, and you need to meet them where they are. Analog systems matter, even in an AI-supercharged workflow.

I had two comms systems running: production comms in one ear, walkie-talkies with the MOVE Chamber folks in the other. The walkie-talkies weren’t clear enough, so we adapted. Texted instead. The person kept reviewing their phone, and it worked. I felt like central command. Telling people, “Alright, we’re rolling,” and having the guidance of the production crew backing me up. It was intense. It was exhilarating.

And at the end? I had to catch a flight at the tail end of the production. But I left confident that the team could take over with no hitches. Because that’s what great production teams do. The Capital One Hall crew is excellent, and I was grateful to work alongside them.

The takeaway? Generalist skills + AI tools = superpowers. I could move fast, adapt on the fly, and solve problems in real-time because I had both the technical range and the AI assistance to supercharge every decision. But it’s not just the tools. It’s the people. Great production teams are everything. Being empowered to lead and own decisions made all the difference.

And yeah, some practical stuff I learned: caffeine pills (100mg) plus one cup of coffee equals no crash. Eat your veggies. Ask more questions. Follow up with CYAs. Set reminders. Print everything.

It was my first time in this role. InshaAllah, it won’t be my last.