On 27 July 1975, the first edition of the Bagpipe Market Exhibition took place in Scapoli, conceived by the Mayor Pasquale Vecchione with the aim of creating the conditions for the survival of the thousand-year-old instrument and its tradition, to attract regional and national attention to the ancestral bag instrument and to give back to the Zampognari and the Zampogna builders passion, pride, awareness of being the custodians of an ancient knowledge.

The event was an immediate success with the public and received the enthusiastic participation of the Zampogna builders and players, whose cultural and traditional presence had long been dormant, also due to the now deep-rooted concept of being part of a "subaltern culture".

In the immediate following years, the Mostra Mercato was accompanied by the International Bagpipe Festival, which had now become a point of reference for traditional popular music at a European level.

The initiative stands out among the most significant popular and folkloristic events of the entire peninsula, obtaining unanimous approval from the national and international press for its particularity.

Its high cultural content, intended as an opportunity to learn about customs, traditions and the history of places, to compare different cultures and as an incentive to promote craftsmanship, makes the International Bagpipe Exhibition and Festival an obligatory meeting point for ethnomusicologists, eminent cultural personalities and illustrious foreign scholars, thus bringing Scapoli to the international spotlight, as the "Capital of the Bagpipe".

A further prestigious recognition is the issue of the celebratory stamp of the "Europa 2014" series, reserved for typical national musical instruments, dedicated to the Scapolese Bagpipe, which shows the image of a Scapolese Bagpipe player in traditional costume while playing the Bagpipe.