Great question.. I reckon Leon, user 2112 could share some valuable insight on this, as his band Ragdoll have toured quite a lot if I’m not mistaken, and he uses the AX8 a lot.
I’ve played/toured half a dozen or so shows with my AX8, and you’re right in saying straight to board, short line checks etc is stressful for sure.
My first piece of advice would be to absolutely learn everything that you can about your AX8 when you get it. Play with it extensively. Try messing around with it on the fly because that’s when it will count most, given you play regular shows. Build your own patches but by all means use the factory patches as a good reference as many of them are actually quite good.
You can anticipate that you’ll get recommendations to experiment with third party IRs etc.. I’d say play around with the stock ones THEN, if you absolutely must, you can look into other ones too.
NOTE.. one thing I discovered pretty quick when going direct to board or PA:
Bump up your mids by 20-25%
Reduce your highs by 15-20%
Adjust bass or low-end to suit
Would probably help to have a FRFR type speaker/monitor to help build/adjust your patches on. Every speaker setup or PA is different, but a flat response sound should, in theory, be mostly the same.
LASTLY.. get yourself a good quality (possibly custom made) pedalboard case for it to live in, and tour in. Protect your investment friend!