A week ahead of its opening, organisers of virtual.drupa have announced that HP and Landa Diigital Printing have joined the virtual trade show.

Print technologies project director Sabine Geldermann announced the “recent registrations” to the event, scheduled for April 20-23.

“Both companies will enrich virtual.drupa with their impressive spectrum of innovative digital printing technologies and broad range of applications,” she said.

She quotes Landa Group chairman Benny Landa that it will be “particularly important for our industry in times when face-to-face events cannot take place”.

Several other long-standing DRUPA exhibitors have also confirmed their participation, among them mailroom vendor Ferag, UV curing systems manufacturer IST Metz, and press maker manroland goss web systems.

Others of interest to the newspaper industry include Kodak, Fujifilm, and Koenig & Bauer.

The event promises more than 200 exhibitors – “including nearly all significant global players” – from 33 countries, notably Germany, China, the US, Switzerland, Italy and Japan.

A matchmaking tool to arrange virtual meetings has attracted 890 exhibitor representatives and about 2400 international visitors have registered.

More than 43 hours of keynote speeches, panel discussions, presentations and exhibitor web sessions are planned.