The campaign needed a dramatic, gritty venue. The underground parking garage seemed perfect — raw, industrial, authentic. They set up 500 folding chairs, a podium, two powered speakers on tripods, and a wireless handheld mic. The candidate strode to the podium, grabbed the mic, and delivered her opening line to thunderous applause that echoed for seven seconds.

The garage was 60 meters long, 40 meters wide, and 3 meters tall — a flat concrete box with no absorption whatsoever. The low ceiling created strong early reflections that smeared consonants. The long parallel walls produced flutter echo on every transient. The RT60 was 4.8 seconds, with the low-ceiling reflections adding a tight, metallic coloring to everything.

The candidate's carefully crafted soundbites became acoustic mush. "We will build a better future" sounded like "Weeee willll billld aaaa bettterrrr fuuutuuurrre" — each word dragging the previous one behind it like a rhetorical anchor. The audience clapped and cheered based on cadence and body language because they couldn't actually understand any specific policy proposal. Some argued this improved the experience.

Parking garages combine high RT60, flutter echo, and low ceiling compression. They were designed for storing cars, not transmitting speech.

The Moral: Venue selection is acoustic selection. Measure the space with SonaVyx RT60 before committing — if RT60 exceeds 2 seconds for speech, you need treatment or a different venue.