INSIDE AUCKLAND LIVE 

Find out more about life inside Auckland Live with regular nuggets of information and fun facts about our people, venues, shows, and live arts and entertainment. 
 

8 March, 2018

Chookas Auckland Arts Festival!

It’s Auckland Arts Festival season at Auckland Live and we’re wishing everyone involved chookas! for a successful 18 days of shows and events.

 

Why ‘chookas’?

Originally an Aussie expression, chookas hails back to the days of 1900’s theatre halls where it could be heard being said backstage before a performance.

At the time, a full house meant the cast would have chicken for supper after the show. So before curtain-up someone would count how many people were in the audience. If there were a lot, the yell to backstage would be “CHOOKAS!” (chook it is)  to let the cast know that chicken would be on the menu.

In time, chookas came to mean ‘good luck’ regardless of the audience size, and like pavlova and flat whites, it has become part of the shared trans-Tasman vernacular.