Hi,
You won't need an event to see data populated to en eVar.
But depending on what you need to see, you have a few different options.
1) Just a total of all widgets - use en event (eventX=8 for example, if 8 widgets was seen/used at the same time)
2) A row of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc... use the eVar as you said
You can of cause also do both 
Hope this makes sense?
/Løjmann