This paper concerns the problem of event-driven observer-based output feedback control of linear systems. Contrary to normal sampled-data control systems, where the controller is updated periodically, in event-driven systems, it is updated only when an "event" happens, and a typical event is defined as some error signals exceeding a given threshold. Both continuous- and discrete-time event detector cases are considered. It is shown that even with the significantly reduced sampling frequency, the global uniform ultimate boundedness of the event-driven closed-loop systems can also be guaranteed. A numerical example is finally used to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed approaches. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.