This article investigates the problem of event-trigger based adaptive backstepping control for a class of nonlinear fractional order systems. By introducing an appropriate transformation of frequency distributed model, the fractional-order indirect Lyapunov method with 0 < < 1 is obtained. In addition, the event-triggered adaptive controller is developed by employing the event-triggered control approach. Meanwhile, by the proposed adaptive control scheme, all the closed-loop signals are globally uniformly bounded, and the tracking error converges to a small neighborhood of the origin. Finally, simulation results are provided to testify the availability of the presented controller.