Filmmakers Sue Burning Man for Not Allowing Them to Film Festival’s Clean Up
Burning Man has been sued by two popular YouTube filmmakers who allege that event organizers blocked them from filming the festival’s cleanup operations in the Nevada desert.
Filmmakers Robert Forney and his daughter Emma Forney — who run the YouTube channel Explore With Us (EWU), which has nearly seven million subscribers — filed a federal lawsuit against Burning Man in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on Wednesday.
The pair, who also own EWU Media, claim their rights were violated by the organizers of the week-long festival, which draws around 80,000 people to the Black Rock Desert each year.
According to a report by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Forneys posted a Facebook video on August 30 titled “What Burning Man Doesn’t Want You to See”. The two-hour video, which has received over one million views, allegedly shows trash and debris left behind after the event.
The filmmakers claim the footage undermines the festival’s claim of being the world’s largest “leave no trace” event, and say the waste creates pollution and safety issues greater than organizers admit.
In their complaint, the Forneys allege that Burning Man’s organizers stopped them from filming the 2024 cleanup. The case raises the question of whether they could legally be trespassed from the playa, given that the event operates under a “non-exclusive permit” on public land.
The lawsuit acknowledges Burning Man’s permit to close parts of the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area from July 25 to October 1, 2024. But the plaintiffs argue the permit was “orally and retroactively” extended from September 28 to October 1 without public notice.
The Forneys further allege that the Bureau of Land Management acted under the direction of Burning Man organizers and the “Black Rock Rangers” — which the lawsuit describes as Burning Man’s imaginary law enforcement agency — when it issued them a trespass warning. They contend that a private group should not decide who can document activities on public land, and that official agencies should not take instructions from festival volunteers.
The lawsuit also claims the filmmakers’ rights to free speech and expression were violated when individuals associated with Burning Man festival allegedly threatened and confronted them. The Forneys claim that they have a “long-standing investigation” into Burning Man’s environmental impact and its handling of sexual misconduct allegations.
“EWU Media is suing to vindicate its right to access and film on public land and report on the impact of Burning Man,” the filmmakers’ attorney Maggie McLetchie says in a statement. “A private group should not be in charge of who can access information about that group’s use of land that belongs to all of us. And law enforcement should not take orders from the ‘Black Rock Rangers,’ Burning Man’s imaginary law enforcement agency.”
Burning Man organizers dismissed the lawsuit as “frivolous” in a statement.
“Burning Man views the complaint as frivolous, without legal or substantive merit, and will vigorously defend the claims against it and take all appropriate legal action against EWU Media LLC in response,” spokesperson Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Image credits: Header photo by Flickr/Steve Jurvetson/ CC BY 2.0 .
