A SOMERSET company has put forward funding to ensure Axbridge’s famous community pageant will go ahead in 2020.

Enable Promotional Marketing, which is based in the town, is the biggest ever corporate supporter

of Axbridge Pageant in its 50 year history and is providing sponsorship money and technical support for the event- including database management for organisation logistics and the pageant’s website.

First performed in 1967 to celebrate the opening of the by-pass along the former Strawberry Line rail track, the pageant is a spectacular re-enactment celebrating 2,000 years of Axbridge history - from Saxon times through to the present day.

John Bailey, director of Axbridge Pageant, said: “We are massively grateful for Enable’s support, without which we would simply not be able to put on such a spectacular show.

"We will still be looking for other sponsorships to secure the financial foundations we need for such a huge event, but this is a massive start for us.”

The pageant will be held over three days from August 28 to August 31, 2020 and each day 400 local performers will be supported by more than 100 volunteers as they revisit 2,000 years of Axbridge history.

Neil Barnes, managing director of Enable, said: “The pageant happens in the square right outside our office window and is an amazing event.

“All our staff are just as enthused as I am to be playing a part and we will be giving practical support as well as financial support.

“As a Somerset-based business with a worldwide client base, and we’re keen for all directors, managers and staff to get involved in the pageant, ‘giving back’ to our community by passing on what we can about our town’s history.

“We are extremely proud of our roots - it’s a very big part of who we are - and we are always ‘spreading the word’ about the town with our clients around the globe.”

John said planning for the event is well underway and hundreds of people have already signed up to be involved in the pageant.

He said: “A year might sound a long way away, but there is so much to do in the coming months – from making props and costumes through to finessing the script and rehearsing.

“We know from all the previous occasions that all the hard work will be rewarded with the culmination of those three days when we depict this marvellous town’s history from the earliest times through to the present day.

“Critically, all of this will be down to the hard work of the people of Axbridge – all parts of the community coming together for a common cause.”