Clay Paky at the 2011 Sanremo Music Festival

Clay Paky was a leading player in the 2011 edition of the Sanremo Music Festival, which has been the biggest music event on Italian television now for over 60 years.

A total of 100 latest-generation Clay Paky moving heads, including Alpha Profile 1500s, Alpha Profile 1200s, Alpha Beam 700s, and Alpha Beam 300s, were installed around the theatre stage, to set off the artists' performances, together with an imposing LED wall.

The scenery, once again designed by the architect Gaetano Castelli, had a futuristic appearance. The classic staircase was replaced by a long spiral ramp that looked almost like the course of a video game.

The Alpha Profile 1500s and 1200s were used for special effects on the stage, artists, and orchestra, while the beam lights were used in particular for backlighting with some powerful and extremely bright light tubes. This year, lights were also installed on the floor. This was not done in past editions because it did not fit in well with the type of flooring used.

Blending the videos displayed on the LED wall with the special lighting effects on the stage and the mid-air beam effects was definitely the biggest challenge the director of photography, Ivan Pierri, faced. "Accepting the challenge of lighting a stage that was crowned by a spectacular scenographical LED spiral that almost completely obstructed the theatre ceiling was really exciting and formed the core of my undertaking at this year's festival," he says.

"My lighting design was created around this innovative three-dimensional shape, designed by Gaetano Castelli, which I tried to use to my advantage by mounting Clay Paky moving head beam shapers inside it. I believe Alpha Beam 700s, Alpha Profile 1500s, and Alpha Profile 1200s are excellent tools, together with graphical effects and other technical equipment, for getting sensations across to the audience in tone with the artists' stage performances."

Gianmarco Mazzi was artistic director and Duccio Forzano, producer.