def create_event(self, timestamp, event_type, hostname, fields, tags=None):
        """Factory method called by the parsers
        """
        # Agent6 expects a specific set of fields, so we need to place all
        # extra fields in the msg_title and let the Datadog backend separate them
        # Any remaining fields that aren't a part of the datadog-agent payload
        # specification will be dropped.
        event_payload = fields._asdict()

        msg_text = {
            'event_type': event_payload.pop('event_type', None),
            'event_soft_hard': event_payload.pop('event_soft_hard', None),
            'check_name': event_payload.pop('check_name', None),
            'event_state': event_payload.pop('event_state', None),
            'payload': event_payload.pop('payload', None),
            'ack_author': event_payload.pop('ack_author', None),
        }

        msg_text = json.dumps(msg_text)
        self.log.info("Nagios Event pack: {}".format(msg_text))

        event_payload.update(
            {
                'timestamp': timestamp,
                'event_type': event_type,
                'msg_text': msg_text,
                'source_type_name': SOURCE_TYPE_NAME,
                'tags': tags,
            }
        )

        # if host is localhost, turn that into the internal host name
        host = event_payload.get('host', None)
        if host == "localhost":
            event_payload["host"] = hostname
        return event_payload