The IMF Annual Meeting is one of the most media-intensive gatherings on the global calendar. Over 100 high-profile sessions ran across six days.
Gravity Media was responsible for managing the full media workflow: staging presentation materials, visual content, and audio files for 35 meeting rooms, managing real-time ingest from production teams, and distributing approved content to international press contacts. And this all across 8 different venues.
The pressure was not just operational volume. Each meeting room had its own content requirements. Presentations needed to be staged in advance and available on demand. Press teams needed structured, immediate access to approved assets without navigating irrelevant content. Internal teams needed to see what had arrived and what was still outstanding, in real time.
At that scale, coordination gaps compound. A misfiled asset is a missed deadline. An access error is a security exposure. The operation demanded a media management system that could handle the structure and the speed simultaneously, the current system simply couldn't scale.
The requirements were shaped by the event itself, not by a generic procurement checklist:
- A folder architecture that mapped to the meeting structure
- Granular user management: press, internal teams, and meeting-room operators each scoped to exactly what they needed
- A custom metadata taxonomy for consistent categorization and fast retrieval under live conditions
- Real-time distribution workflows for international press, eliminating manual handoffs
- A post-event archiving path that preserved structure and metadata, not just files
MediaLab could be configured as a tailored MAM environment designed around the Marrakesh meeting structure. Built for the specific operational reality of this event: 35 rooms, six days, thousands of assets, multiple stakeholder groups with different access needs.
MediaLab worked directly with Gravity Media and the event organizers to configure the environment from the ground up: onboarded three months prior to the event, MediaLab completed the whole setup, tested the system, and provided on-call support during the event.
The folder architecture came first. An organized system built around the meeting structure ensured each team could access exactly what they needed without navigating irrelevant content. Each of the 35 meeting rooms had its own workflow context, with presentations, visual assets, and audio files staged in advance and available on demand.
User management was configured alongside it. Press, internal teams, and meeting-room operators each received scoped, appropriate access. Granular controls ensured the right credentials reached the right people without overlap.
A purpose-built metadata taxonomy made categorization consistent across the entire operation. Under live-event conditions, content could be located and moved quickly. No searching through undifferentiated folders.
Distribution workflows for international press went live with the rest of the system. Approved content was structured and accessible immediately, eliminating delays and manual handoffs across time zones.
Over six days, Gravity Media's team managed and distributed 6,000+ media files in real time without operational failure. Internal meeting rooms received content on schedule. Press had structured, immediate access to approved assets. The system held under sustained load. And was of course, the starting point of many newsfeeds into peoples homes.