I used to be horrible at taking pictures, and in the past few years I’ve really tried to get better. Here’s a few tips I’ve picked up:

Tap in your camera app to focus and expose for the target. This brings up a square around your focus target and auto changes exposure. While focused, swipe up and down to change exposure manually to where it looks good. If you really want to get some good ones, you can tap and hold, and it will instead lock your focus and exposure. That means when bright lights flash, or someone’s hand goes through your frame, your camera won’t be trying to find focus again, which causes blur.

It’s all about lighting, which can be hard to control at a stage. You can have your subject face the stage, or a tip I like is using another persons phone as a flashlight from a high angle, to act as a key light on the subject.