Seeing the Mass Games was my main reason for coming to North Korea, and I was not disappointed. It was worth every cent I paid for the entire tour, as well as the price of the tickets themselves (100 Euros or $135 for 'second class' seats, not included in the tour price).
The Mass Games are held every year, several times a week between August and October. This year's performance (I'm not sure how much it changes from year to year) is called Arirang. While it has nothing to do with games, the 'Mass' part of the title is completely accurate - over 100,000 performers are involved. Thousands are on the floor at any given point, while thousands more schoolchildren sit in the stands across from the audience, holding up and flipping large, colored posters to form gigantic images that complement the performers on the ground.
I think Arirang is meant to be about Korean history; I couldn't read the posters to understand the scene titles, but even without following the story at all I was blown away by the dancing, acrobatics, pyrotechnics, gymnastics, and coordination of so many people. There just aren't words for it, and my pictures of course don't capture the movement, and barely give you an idea of the scale. I took these pictures at the first performance I attended, and then a bunch of us went twice. The second time we got a free seat upgrade and I didn't take a single picture, just tried to take it all in.
A huge motivating factor in my decision to visit North Korea was the documentary A State of Mind. I watched this sometime last spring or summer, and then I knew that I had to see it live. A.S.O.M. is about two young girls who live in Pyongyang and perform in the Mass Games. I highly, highly recommend requesting the DVD from your local library - you'll see some amazing footage of the Games and the insane preparations the girls go through to perform, as well as day-to-day life in North Korea.
The Mass Games was definitely one of the top expereiences of my life, and currently North Korea is the only place in the world to see anything like it. They're held at the May Day Stadium (which has the largest capacity of any stadium in the world). To see more, just type 'mass games' in Google Images and you'll see tons of photos that are much better than mine. YouTube also has quite a few videos; just type in 'mass games.' I didn't watch them all, but this one is really good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKWttrEaSM&feature=related (if the link stops working, search YouTube: the name of the video is Arirang Mass Games 2007, by 'lastknownlocation') - you can see the kids with the posters really well.
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