Hackers, artists, entrepreneurs and self-proclaimed geeks of all stripes staged their own Occupy movement on a downtown block of Palo Alto Saturday afternoon -- though in this case, city officials were in on the game.

Crowds of techno-savvy residents braved the fickle weather and descended on High Street for the "Super Happy Block Party," a mash-up of block party, Hackathon, networking gala and food festival. The event featured a fleet of food trucks, "silent disco" DJ's whose music can only be heard through headphones, hundreds of hackers and dozens of informational kiosks set up by businesses and nonprofits on the three bottom tiers of the High Street garage.

The event was co-hosted by Innovation Endeavors, a venture firm founded by Google board Chair Eric Schmidt, and Talenthouse, a social-network platform for artists and programmers. Both are headquartered on the High Street block between University and Hamilton avenues -- a block that was shut down for the 12-hour event (which is scheduled to end at 1 a.m. Sunday).

Hundreds of visitors throughout the day packed into the two companies' offices to set up laptops, don headphones and work their coding magic. Hundreds of others mingled, browsed and exchanged business cards. The event proceeded with no noticeable glitches through the morning sun and the afternoon rain until about 3 p.m., when an elevator at the Innovation Endeavors building got stuck for about 45 minutes, prompting Palo Alto firefighters from Engine 1 to come to the rescue. While all 10 elevator occupants were unharmed and generally in good humor, access to the company's fourth-floor suite was subsequently restricted to the coders and organizers already inside.

Much of the action at the event took place in the High Street garage, where tables run by nonprofit groups and businesses vied for attention with a pingpong table, a technology petting zoo and an education event by Hack the Future, an organization that teaches kids about computers.

"I just love doing things that are so typically San Francisco Bay Area," said Jeff Brown, a visitor who attended the event with his two daughters. His 6-year-old daughter, Charlotte, was across the table from him, learning how to smolder from Eric Allen, a Hack the Future member.

"You can't do this sort of thing anywhere else," Brown said.

Others went to the third floor of the garage to pitch their inventions to venture capitalists, who were rotating in shifts at two tables. More than 200 people reserved appointment slots with venture capitalists, said Quinn Emanuel, an operations manager at Innovation Endeavors who was coordinating the venture-capital corner. Those who couldn't get a seat at the table mingled with potential investors in a less formal fashion at the side of the garage.

"All offered slots have been filled but we're trying to accommodate everyone," Emanuel said.

The event was sponsored by Innovation Endeavors, Talenthouse, Institute for the Future and the City of Palo Alto. City Manager James Keene, who attended Super Happy Block Party, said the city was happy to support the event because it gives officials a chance to build relationships with the high-tech community. Keene and the city's Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental also plan to release various sets of public data in the coming months and encourage local programmers to turn this data into apps and other useful tools for residents.

Last week, the city unveiled its first example of an online tool designed by hackers for the city -- an index of local streets and conditions called StreetViewer.

Reichental also attended the event and wore headphones -- connoting his participation in the "silent disco" -- as he navigated through Talenthouse.

"This is a festival for geeks and I mean it in the best possible way," he said.

Vice Mayor Greg Scharff, who toured Innovation Endeavors with his son, Jason, said he believes that with an expected 2,000 visitors, the event is shaping up to be the largest Hackathon in the nation's history.

"When you see all these young people here creating the future, you've got to feel good about the future of America," Scharff said.

Event organizers have told the Weekly that they envision the block party as a potential "template of innovation." The goal, according to Innovation Endeavors and Talenthouse officials, is to both celebrate the creativity and technological prowess of Palo Alto and to create a new model for generating ideas.