28 August 2026: 50 years of Claypaky
Today, exactly 50 years after its foundation, Claypaky celebrates its golden anniversary. It was on 28 August 1976 that Pasquale Quadri “Paky” – a promising young musician from an early age and passionate about photography and optics – founded the company in the province of Bergamo, northern Italy, with an idea that was anything but obvious at the time: light could be much more than illumination. In an era when stage lighting was primarily descriptive and functional, fixtures were largely static, with little or no connection to music or movement and almost no possibility of creating dynamic visual effects. Colour changes, when used, were generally achieved by manually inserting gel filters. Paky saw a different future: light could become an active creative element, capable of moving, transforming, interacting with music and, above all, generating emotion.
Fifty years later, that intuition has become a global success story. From its headquarters in Seriate, Claypaky has built a reputation as one of the world’s leading names in professional entertainment lighting. Its products have illuminated all the most important stages, concerts, theatres, television productions and international events of the past five decades.
The anniversary is therefore more than a celebration of longevity. It is a moment to look back at a history shaped by technological firsts, Italian craftsmanship and a constant ability to anticipate the evolution of the lighting industry.
From disco lighting to a new visual language
Claypaky was initially conceived as a manufacturer of disco lighting, with its first fixture, the CP-LX3, dating back to 1972, four years before the company was officially founded. From the very beginning, Pasquale Quadri understood that lighting could become an active part of the entertainment experience.
At a time when clubs were still largely equipped with manually operated fixtures, Claypaky began developing products that made light dynamic, expressive and closely connected to music.
The Astrodisco, launched in 1982, used a single lamp and multiple lenses to create dozens of beams of light simultaneously. A year later, Astroraggi projected more than 100 pulsating beams across European dance floors, transforming the visual experience of clubs.
These early products established a pattern that would recur throughout Claypaky’s history. The company would identify a new creative possibility, develop the technology to make it practical and, in doing so, help create an entirely new category within professional lighting.
The Golden Scan Revolution
That philosophy reached a major milestone in 1988 with the Golden Scan, the first moving mirror fixture, or “scanner,” to incorporate microstepper motors. This breakthrough enabled an unprecedented level of precision and control in movement, helping the Golden Scan become a market leader and an industry benchmark for more than a decade.
The Golden Scan became much more than a successful professional lighting fixture. Its name entered popular culture when British band Klaxons used it as the inspiration for the title of their 2007 hit “Golden Skans”.
Other important milestones followed, including the Miniscan, the world’s first compact scanner, and the Super Scan Zoom, introduced in 1994 as the world’s first fixture to combine CMY colour mixing with a zoom function.
By the end of the 1990s, the market itself was changing. Professional lighting was moving beyond discotheques and increasingly becoming an essential part of concert touring, theatre, television and large-scale events. Claypaky evolved with it.
The Stage Line, introduced in 1999 as a family of six moving body projectors ranging from 300 to 1,200 watts, became a reference product for major international productions. A few years later, the Stage Profile 1200 became the first professional beam shaper to feature a highly sophisticated, patended framing system capable of producing the distinctive “curtain effect” with a single blade.
From innovation to industry standard
The following decade saw Claypaky introduce a series of products that did not simply improve existing technologies but changed expectations of what a moving light could achieve.
In 2008, the Alpha Beam 300 established the beam moving light as a new category. Instead of producing a broad cone of illumination, it generated a narrow, solid and sharply focused column of light. Within just a few years, beam fixtures had become a standard element of major stage productions around the world.
The concept reached iconic status with Sharpy, launched in 2010. Weighing approximately 19 kilograms and consuming just 189 watts, it delivered an extraordinary, unprecedented output for a fixture of its size. It quickly became one of the best-selling moving heads in the history of entertainment lighting, earning numerous Innovation Awards from leading international industry organisations and achieving truly global adoption across virtually every sector of the entertainment industry. Its success was also a clear demonstration of Claypaky’s ability to turn technical innovation into a product with a profound clear demonstration of Claypaky’s ability to turn technical innovation into a product with a profound impact on the market. The Sharpy was widely imitated but remained the original reference point for the category it had helped define.
Other landmark products followed. The highly innovative, game-changing B-Eye combined wash, beam and effects capabilities in a single LED moving head, while Mythos introduced a new generation of hybrid fixtures. In 2019, Xtylos became the world’s first moving head using an RGB laser source, once again opening up a new technological category.
Claypaky subsequently launched a series of sophisticated fixtures specifically designed for theatre, including Sinfonya and Rhapsodya, distinguished by their exceptionally high-quality light output and CRI, and incorporating a wide range of unique, patented technical innovations.
The same philosophy continues today. In 2024, Claypaky launched the Ultimo family, featuring the Ultimo Hybrid, one of the most versatile fixtures ever introduced to the market, and the Ultimo Sharpy, a highly advanced IP66-rated evolution of the original Sharpy concept.
Rather than simply replacing its classics, Claypaky has consistently found ways to evolve them.
Lighting the world
The true scale of Claypaky’s impact can be seen on the world’s biggest stages and at the most watched entertainment events on the planet.
For more than 20 years, Claypaky has been a key lighting technology partner of the Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s biggest live TV and online music event (200 million viewers worldwide each year!). Claypaky fixtures have helped shape the spectacular visual identity of an event where lighting is not simply part of the production, but one of its defining creative elements.
Claypaky technology has also played a role in the Super Bowl Halftime Show, the most important entertainment event in the United States and one of the most watched live spectacles in the world.
The company’s fixtures have also illuminated the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, World Expos, Disney on Ice and Holiday on Ice, demonstrating their ability to meet the demands of productions where technical reliability and visual impact are equally critical.
Claypaky’s relationship with Cirque du Soleil goes back to the company’s earliest international productions in the 1990s. From its first shows, Claypaky provided the lighting fixtures used to create extraordinary atmospheres and constantly changing visual worlds that have become a defining characteristic of Cirque du Soleil’s productions.
In concert touring, Claypaky fixtures have accompanied some of the biggest names in music, including, among others, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Beyoncé, Shakira, Elton John, Justin Timberlake, Ed Sheeran, Metallica, Rammstein, Coldplay and Bad Bunny – the latter on his spectacular 2026 tour. They have also become a permanent presence in some of the world’s most prestigious cultural venues, including the Bolshoi Theatre, the Royal Albert Hall, the Opéra Garnier, the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, the Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, and Milan’s Teatro alla Scala.
Claypaky technology is equally established in television and broadcast, with fixtures used by major production organisations including RAI, Mediaset, Sky, BBC and NBC. Across these very different environments, from global live broadcasts to intimate theatrical productions, the common denominator is the same: the ability to turn light into an essential part of creative experience.
Today, around 95 percent of Claypaky’s production is exported through a network spanning more than 80 countries, making the company’s Italian technology a truly global presence in professional entertainment lighting.
A company shaped by change
Claypaky’s technological evolution has been accompanied by a dynamic corporate history.
In 2014, the company became part of the OSRAM Group. The same year also marked the death of founder Pasquale Quadri.
In 2016, Claypaky acquired ADB Lighting Technologies, strengthening its position in theatre and broadcast lighting and expanding its activities through ADB Stagelight.
In March 2023, the company was acquired by ARRI, the Munich based specialist in camera and broadcast technology.
The next chapter began in May 2025, when Claypaky became part of EK Lights, a long-standing development partner and a major international player in professional lighting.
The new ownership structure provides a stronger industrial platform and new opportunities for international growth. At the same time, the essential identity of Claypaky remains unchanged. The company continues to be headquartered in Seriate, its product development remains rooted in Italy and the Claypaky brand continues to be at the centre of its activities.
On 28 August 2026, Claypaky celebrates five decades of pioneering spirit. Fifty years after Pasquale Quadri founded the company in northern Italy, Claypaky enters its sixth decade with a clear ambition: to build on its heritage while exploring new possibilities at the intersection of lighting and technology. Innovation remains driven by customer needs and increasingly extends “beyond the light source” and beyond the fixture itself, combining hardware with cloud platforms, IoT, software and digital services. The anniversary is therefore not simply a celebration of the past, but the starting point for a new chapter.