Today, 50 years after its foundation, Claypaky celebrates its golden anniversary. The company was founded on 28 August 1976 in Bergamo by Pasquale Quadri "Paky", a musician with a passion for photography and optics, with an innovative idea: light could be much more than illumination.
At a time when stage lighting was 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 imagined 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 leading brands in professional entertainment lighting. Its products have illuminated the most important stages, concerts, theatres, television productions and international events of the past five decades.
This anniversary is therefore much more than a celebration of its longevity. It is a moment to look back on a history shaped by technological firsts, Italian craftsmanship and a constant ability to anticipate the evolution of the lighting industry.
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From disco lighting to a new visual language
Claypaky was founded as a manufacturer of disco lighting, and its first fixture, the CP-LX3, dates back to 1972, four years before the company was officially established. From the beginning, Pasquale Quadri understood that lighting could become an active part of the entertainment experience.
At a time when clubs were still 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 identified a new creative possibility, developed the technology needed to make it a reality and, in doing so, helped create an entirely new category within professional lighting.
The Golden Scan revolution
This philosophy reached an important milestone in 1988 with the Golden Scan, the first moving-mirror fixture—or "scanner"—to incorporate microstepper motors. This breakthrough delivered unprecedented precision and movement control, helping the Golden Scan become a market leader and an industry benchmark for more than a decade.
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The Golden Scan became much more than a successful professional lighting fixture. Its name entered popular culture when British band Klaxons used it as 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 profile fixture to incorporate a sophisticated, patented framing system capable of producing the distinctive "curtain effect" with a single blade.
From innovation to industry standard
During the following decade, Claypaky introduced a series of products that did not simply improve existing technologies but changed expectations of what a moving head could achieve.
In 2008, the Alpha Beam 300 established beam moving heads as a new category. Instead of producing a broad cone of illumination, it generated a narrow, solid and sharply defined column of light. Within just a few years, beam fixtures had become a standard feature of major stage productions around the world.
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The concept achieved iconic status with Sharpy, launched in 2010. Weighing approximately 19 kilograms and consuming just 189 watts, it delivered extraordinary and unprecedented output for a fixture of its size. It quickly became one of the best-selling moving heads in the history of entertainment lighting, received numerous innovation awards from leading international industry organisations and achieved worldwide adoption across virtually every area of the entertainment industry. Its success also demonstrated Claypaky’s ability to turn technical innovation into a product with a profound impact on the market. Sharpy was widely imitated but remained the original benchmark for the category it had helped define.
Other landmark products followed. The innovative and revolutionary 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 to use an RGB laser source, once again opening up a new technological category.
Claypaky subsequently launched a series of sophisticated fixtures designed for theatre, including Sinfonya and Rhapsodya, distinguished by their exceptional light quality and high CRI, while also incorporating a wide range of unique, patented technical innovations.
That 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 classic products, Claypaky has consistently found new ways to evolve them.
Lighting the world
The true scale of Claypaky’s impact can be seen on the world’s most important stages and at some of the most watched entertainment events on the planet.
For more than 20 years, Claypaky has been one of the main lighting technology partners of the Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s largest live music event for television and the internet, with 200 million viewers every year. Claypaky fixtures have helped define the spectacular visual identity of an event where lighting is not simply part of the production but one of its distinctive creative elements.
Claypaky technology has also played an important 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.
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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 important.
Claypaky’s relationship with Cirque du Soleil dates back to the company’s first international productions in the 1990s. From its earliest shows, Claypaky supplied the lighting fixtures used to create the extraordinary atmospheres and constantly changing visual worlds that have become a defining feature of Cirque du Soleil productions.
On concert tours, Claypaky fixtures have accompanied some of the biggest names in music, including 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 during 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 Palais Garnier, the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts and Milan’s Teatro alla Scala.
Claypaky technology is also firmly established in television and broadcasting, with fixtures used by major production organisations such as 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 the creative experience.
Today, around 95% 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. Its founder, Pasquale Quadri, also passed away that same year.
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In 2016, Claypaky acquired ADB Lighting Technologies, strengthening its position in theatre and television lighting and expanding its activities through ADB Stagelight.
In March 2023, the company was acquired by ARRI, the Munich-based specialist in camera and broadcasting technology.
The next chapter began in May 2025, when Claypaky became part of EK Lights, the company’s 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 essence of Claypaky’s identity remains unchanged. The company continues to be headquartered in Seriate, its product development remains rooted in Italy and the Claypaky brand continues to play a central role in 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 continues to be 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. This anniversary is therefore not only a celebration of the past but also the starting point for a new chapter.
