Derek Hough is bringing his live stage show "Symphony of Dance: Encore" to San Antonio's Tobin Center on August 11, taking over the H-E-B Performance Hall for a single night built around rock 'n' roll, big band, Latin and contemporary music. Tickets for the six-time "Dancing with the Stars" Mirrorball champion and current judge run from $73 to $152, with VIP packages priced between $261.50 and $831.50. The touring production blends dance, song, live music, stage design and costume changes into one evening.
The San Antonio stop follows Hough's successful 2023 Symphony of Dance tour, according to the San Antonio Express-News, whose reporter René Guzman notes the Encore version debuted at the Tribeca Festival in New York City in June. The show is co-created, directed and choreographed with two-time Emmy-winning duo Napoleon and Tabitha Dumo, known as NappyTabs, whose past credits include Jennifer Lopez's Las Vegas residency and Michael Jackson's The Immortal World Tour, per the Mayo Performing Arts Center. The set list includes renditions of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and "Singin' in the Rain," along with a humorous number poking fun at Hough's own gig as a DWTS judge, the paper reports.
A Comeback Story Woven Into the Choreography
The tour's most personal moment centers on Hough's wife and dance partner, Hayley Erbert Hough, who suffered a cranial hematoma from a burst blood vessel following a tour performance in Washington, D.C., in December 2023. The injury required an emergency craniectomy followed by a cranioplasty to replace a portion of her skull, according to Yahoo, before she returned to dance on tour in April 2024. The couple had postponed the original Symphony of Dance tour during her recovery, and Erbert Hough completed that run just five months after her brain bleed.
In San Antonio, the couple will perform a routine dedicated to their daughter, Everley, the same report notes. Erbert Hough also has grandparents living in San Antonio, adding a family connection to the stop beyond the stage. The Aug. 11 date arrives less than a day before Hough is set to leave for London to train with Corky and Shirley Ballas, per the same account of his schedule.
From Ballroom Pro to Emmy Record-Holder
Hough, 41, began dancing at age 11 in Salt Lake City and went on to win several under-21 world championships after spending a decade honing his Latin dance skills. He joined "Dancing with the Stars" as a professional dancer in Season 5 in 2007, working the ballroom floor through 2016 and racking up six Mirrorball trophies before shifting to the judges' table in 2020, where he still sits. Hough also once starred as the lead in London's West End production of Footloose: The Musical.
He holds the Television Academy record for the most Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Choreography, with 14 nods and four wins, according to Wikipedia. Beyond touring and judging, Hough took over as a host of the syndicated entertainment news program "Extra" starting with its 32nd season in September 2025. His sister Julianne Hough, who joined DWTS in Season 4 in early 2007 and won her debut season with Olympic speedskater Apolo Ohno, has also performed in San Antonio, and Derek himself has taken the stage in the city before.
The Franchise Momentum Behind the Tour
The Encore tour is landing amid a busy stretch for the "Dancing with the Stars" franchise. ABC premiered the spinoff series "Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro" in July, in which 12 up-and-coming dancers compete for a permanent pro spot on Season 35, according to ABC Press. The eventual winner is set to join Hough's Encore tour in addition to the main show, though exactly when that dancer will appear on the tour, and how the San Antonio stop factors in, hasn't been detailed publicly.
Wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin won Season 34 alongside pro Witney Carson in November 2025, making Robert and his sister Bindi Irwin the first sibling pair to both win Mirrorball trophies in the show's history, per Extra. That season ranked as DWTS's highest-rated in nearly a decade, the Express-News reports, and the main show returns with a live two-night premiere on ABC and Disney+ on September 15. It's also not yet clear how ticket sales for the San Antonio show compare with earlier stops on Hough's tour.
San Antonio's Restored 1920s Showplace
The H-E-B Performance Hall itself seats 1,738 for the Encore performance, though the Tobin Center's flexible, convertible "flat-floor" mechanism and custom acoustic tuning can expand the room to 2,100 for general admission events, according to the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. The venue opened in September 2014 following a $150 million renovation that preserved the 1926 Spanish Colonial Revival facade of the historic San Antonio Municipal Auditorium, which was built as a memorial to World War I veterans and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, per ArchDaily.
The venue also runs its Arts for All ticket program, launched in 2024 to offer $10 or free tickets to select performances for San Antonio residents receiving SNAP or WIC food assistance. The initiative, sustained through donor contributions, covers a rotating selection of touring shows and resident companies at the historic hall.
