North Korea’s giant propaganda performance known as the “mass games” ended its shortest run in years over the weekend, according to satellite imagery.

The event, this year titled “Great Guidance,” reportedly opened with Kim Jong Un in attendance on Oct. 11 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).

Its opening, bringing together over 100,000 performers and audience members, came amid North Korea’s continued efforts to fight off the COVID-19 pandemic, though the country has repeatedly claimed that there are zero domestic cases.

State-run outlet Arirang Meari previously reported that the show would run from Oct. 12 through Oct. 31, without specifying how frequently they would be held.

But Oct. 30 Planet Labs satellite imagery (timelapse shown below) of Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium shows that the white flooring installed specifically for the mass games each year was already partly removed that day, and then fully removed by Oct. 31.

The white flooring was first installed in early July of this year, initially indicating that the opening event could come as early as August, based on patterns displayed in previous years.

If the first show was indeed on Oct. 11 as state media claimed, it would mark the shortest run for what is officially referred to as the “grand mass gymnastics and artistic performances” since the events returned in 2018 from a five-year hiatus.

By comparison, the 2018 event ran from the Sept. 9 national holiday through early November, while the 2019 event started in early June and was held almost nightly through mid-October that year.

However, it is also not possible to verify if the performances were held up until when the floor was removed on Oct. 30 this year, given the relative lack of coverage in state media compared to previous years.

Not much is known about the content of the performance this year, either. Independent parties and tourists were unable to publish accounts due to North Korea closing its borders amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

At least one South Korean government official offered the theory that North Korea actually did not hold the event even for the 20-day period between opening night and the stadium flooring removal.

“The truth seems to be that it was not held after the first day,” an unnamed official from the Ministry of Unification (MOU) told reporters in a briefing on Oct. 22.

It also appears that only photos and video from the opening performance have been featured in state media in recent weeks, and no reports have been published describing any event other than opening night.

The decision to hold the event over a shorter period this year — whether for a single night or 20 days — could have been made due to challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent spate of natural disasters in the country and a new political mobilization campaign.

The “80-day battle” or campaign mandating that all citizens conduct extra work to complete year-end economic tasks began the day of or one day after the mass games opening night.

Edited by Kelly Kasulis