A real-time data processing strategy is proposed for high-energy physics experiments, and its implementation at the LHCb experiment is presented. The reduced event model allows the signal candidate firing the trigger to be persisted, along with an arbitrary set of other reconstructed or raw objects from the event. This allows for higher trigger rates for a given output data bandwidth and reduction of the storage used/needed, when compared to the traditional model of saving the full raw detector data for each trigger, whilst accommodating inclusive triggers and preserving data mining capabilities. The gains in physics reach and savings in computing resources already made possible by the model during Run 2 of the experiment are discussed.