$re = '/(?<id>\d+) \| (?<events_raw>[^\|]+) \|/mi';
$str = '1234 | [[`Event1`,1435],[`Event2`,78],[`Event3`,142]] |';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php