This paper studies the event-triggering leader-follower consensus with the strictly dissipative performance for nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) with semi-Markov changing topologies. First, a polynomial fuzzy model is established to describe the error nonlinear multi-agent system that is formed by one virtual leader and followers. Then, a new event-triggering transmission strategy is proposed to mitigate communication and computational load. By utilizing the event-triggering mechanism and modeling the switching topologies by semi-Markov process, a sampled-data based consensus protocol is designed. Compared with traditional Markov jump topologies, the transition rate is time-varying for semi-Markov switching topologies. By mode-dependent Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, the sum of square based relaxed stabilization conditions for fuzzy MASs are obtained to guarantee event-triggering consensus with strict dissipativity in an even-square sense, i.e., the derived conditions take into account the joint effects of event-triggering control, semi-Markov jump topologies and external disturbance. An illustrative example is provided to verify the proposed consensus design schemes.INDEX TERMS Multi-agent system, fuzzy modeling, strict dissipativity, event-triggering control, semi-Markov switching topology.