An RDF triple expresses a relationship between at most two resources. However some relationships are not binary and involve the equal participation of several different resources. This is most common in the case of events, where the event is a relation between several resources, e.g. a Purchase is an n-ary relationship between a Person, a Product, and a Seller. All of those participants are key to the relationship.

Create a class for the relationship, and create instances of that resource to relate together the other resources that are involved in the relation.

ex:bob a foaf:Person.
ex:mary a foaf:Person.
ex:conferenceCentre a ex:Building.
ex:legoinc a foaf:Organization.

_:event1 a ex:Conference;
  dc:title "Lego Hack Day";
  ex:organizer ex:mary;
  ex:attendee ex:bob;
  ex:sponsor ex:legoinc;
  ex:location ex:conferenceCentre.

The N-ary Relation pattern is similar to the Qualified Relation pattern as both involve the same basic solution: modelling a relationship as a resource rather than a property. They differ in their context. In the Qualified Relation pattern the desire is to annotate a relationship between two resources, whereas in the N-ary Relation pattern the goal is to represent a complex relation between several resources.